


There's No Together, There's No Apart, There Is Only Impossible Longing

by printfogey



Category: Gintama
Genre: Angst, Don't copy to another site, Dysfunctional Relationships, Jealousy, M/M, OT3, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Pre-Canon, They're a mess, Zura's standby problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23070361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/printfogey/pseuds/printfogey
Summary: A story about Gintoki, Katsura and Takasugi told through various scenes and fragments, starting pre-canon and ending post-canon. Warning for angst, coarse language, and canon spoilers.
Relationships: Katsura Kotarou/Sakata Gintoki, Katsura Kotarou/Sakata Gintoki/Takasugi Shinsuke, Katsura Kotarou/Takasugi Shinsuke, Sakata Gintoki/Takasugi Shinsuke
Comments: 24
Kudos: 88





	1. Prologue: Back then

**Author's Note:**

> This work is about the Gintoki/Katsura/Takasugi trio as one ship and also as GinTaka, GinZura and TakaZura. It's told through various scenes, some pretty fragmentary, others more continuous. They start pre-canon and ends several years after manga canon ends. Not all scenes are in strict chronological order.
> 
> All chapters have been betaed by either [Plipdragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plipdragon) or [Sparda](https://archiveourown.org/users/Sparda) or both. I am very grateful to them both for all their patient work and for their incredibly heartening and supportive encouragement. ♥ ♥♥ Any remaining errors are my responsibility alone. Constructive criticism is very welcome, nitpicks included! As is feedback in general, of course!
> 
> I also want to thank everyone who's seen various snippets of this fic and have encouraged me to keep writing!! ♥
> 
> Disclaimer etc: The characters of Gintama are created and owned by Hideaki Sorachi. They're used here without permission for entertainment purposes only. This fic may not be used for profit in any way, and should not be reposted elsewhere without the writer's approval, especially not to any sites using ad revenue.

It had been a hot and humid day, over one year away from the end of the war. Gintoki had gone with Takasugi to a downed enemy scouting ship to strip it of machinery and anything else they could use. The ship had already been judged beyond repair, at least with the resources of the rebel army, so the aim now was to take what they could and sabotage the ship so the Amanto and the Bakufu couldn’t use it either if they got their hands on it again. The plan had been to bring a Kiheitai soldier with actual engineer training with him, but he’d fallen ill from a snake bite last night, so they’d just have to make do. As there weren’t any men to spare, they went just the two of them, disregarding Zura’s pleas to be more careful and tactical.

But just like scouts had said before, the enemy wasn’t anywhere near here, and they made it to the ship with only themselves to fight. And as for that, the weather took a lot of the energy out of Gintoki’s pushing, and Takasugi also seemed more weary than usual, slower to push back, as if distracted. 

Working in that small, wrecked hull, tearing off cables and gathering fuel, Gintoki had thought at the time he would rather have had Zura there. It was too hot for fighting with Takasugi. Even if Zura had only been in a nagging, fussy mood, unable to be convinced into some making out and a quickie, there was still something soothing about Zura’s presence, something almost waterlike.

But none of that mattered in the end; not the heat or the humidity or the pair of hands that wasn’t there, no what-ifs, if-onlys and but-what-if-the-enemy-attacks-after all -- none of that mattered. Because _that_ was the day when Takasugi reached out, that was the day he put his hands on him hard enough to leave bruises, but followed with angry kisses full of fire, fierce and urgent. First he’d pushed Gintoki up against the hull of the downed airship, but when Gintoki spun the two around, Takasugi only growled and seized him harder, nails digging in. The heat was getting to Gintoki's head, even here in the shade, and the air smelled chokingly of gasoline and burnt-out engines amidst all the summer flowers; their movements as they made out and took their clothes off and went on from there were awkward and uneven, a clumsy dance that seemed hundreds of miles away from the elegance when they fought side by side. It was all sweaty confusion and greedy uncertainty, and getting caught with their literal trousers down would be deeply embarrassing if they were caught by their own people and the last mistake they might ever make if it was by the other side. None of that mattered. It was inconvenient, unsoothing, hotly blazing, and there’d been no chance in hell that Gintoki could have even tried to think about anything else other than staying right where he was, seizing and being seized and holding on, learning more about the other with each clumsy move, working towards release, not sure he wanted it to stop.

Takasugi said nothing afterwards as they put their clothes back on, loaded their packs with as much equipment as they could carry, and started to walk back to the camp. Gintoki held his tongue as well, having no idea what to say. About halfway back, they crossed a marshy piece of ground with many treacherous tufts of grass. Takasugi misstepped on one of them and swore as he plunged into a puddle. Gintoki called him a clumsy idiot. Takasugi told him to go to hell, but his foot seemed to be stuck, so Gintoki walked back and held his hand out. Takasugi swatted it away and freed his foot on his own, scowling as he strode past.

“Sheesh, what the fuck? You’re even worse than usual. I wasn’t _that_ bad, was I?” Gintoki said, because if the little shit was going to be like this then he could just forget about Gintoki keeping up some kind of Manly Silence about what they’d just done. 

Takasugi looked back at him over his shoulder, glared first, but then eased his expression into a sneer. “I’ve had worse,” he said. “But Zura was better.”

That made Gintoki in turn stumble, but he managed to avoid falling into water himself. “You and Zura? Since when?” He hurried to catch up. 

Takasugi shrugged, looking at the treacherous ground now. “The other day. You know, you two are so laughable when you’re trying to hide it. The way you look at and touch each other…” He curled his lips in distaste. “Even Sakamoto could see something was going on. You’re pathetic.”

Gintoki flushed. They _had_ thought they were being careful, dammit! “What – you – so what! It’s not hurting anyone! And we just…” He swallowed and licked his lips, his mouth dry. He forced himself to keep his tone low, “Were you just trying to make some kind of idiotic fucking point back there, you bastard?”

That was when Takasugi had chuckled, the tension easing in his shoulders, which only made Gintoki more ticked off. They’d cleared the marshy ground at this point. Takasugi looked off towards the hillside in front of them; once they climbed it, they’d be able to see the camp. “I suppose I was,” he said, shrugging. “You can’t keep something like that just for yourselves. You’re not allowed.”

Gintoki gaped for a few seconds, before hurrying up. “You goddamn jealous prick,” he hissed, but Takasugi was moving ahead and might not have caught it. Gintoki wiped the sweat from his hair and swore, too hot and too off-balance. 

But he was tucking the fresh memory away of those moments, all the same, of those touches and sounds, the way he’d made Takasugi look and move, the way he’d been handled in return… Even if there had been jealousy and spite behind it, it still felt like grace to him.

And it was the only time it ever happened, back then.


	2. Raging Fire, Clear Water, And Pure White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set from a few years before canon starts until shortly before the Benizakura arc.

Katsura's touch is like an autumn leaf right as the wind finally deposits it down on the ground. It's melancholy but not insistent, leaving Takasugi room to breathe. That's the only reason why it's still tolerable. 

Zura treats Takasugi like a burden he can't quite let go of, like a duty he still carries close to his chest, in that stubborn Zura-like way. If Takasugi was a whole person, if he was a kind person, that taking on burdens might have bothered him. He is not whole anymore and he was never kind, and it's only the attachment Zura still shows that's a lingering irritation, one he will have to deal with eventually.

Is Zura a whole person? Takasugi finds that doubtful. Whether he tries to play at being whole or tries to play at being as cracked and broken as Takasugi, he's not convincing. A fraud either way, unable to commit. His voice comes close like the smell of the rain. There are things he will never be able to know. 

Perhaps he’s too singular for madness to truly claim him; perhaps, strange to say, he’s not real enough for that. Not like Takasugi. Not like Gintoki, even. They both used to cling to that comforting unrealness, and now Katsura is the one who's lost, without those hands tugging at his kimono.

But that is none of his concern.

He keeps quiet, tonight, putting the shamisen aside after only a few minutes of playing. Then he sticks to just smoking, drinking and watching Zura, making no move to reach out even in the vicious, self-centred way that is all he allows himself. With all his flaws and frustrations, Zura can still keep usefully silent on occasion, and this evening is a time for silence and quiet.

Zura also doesn’t seem interested in anything physical tonight. He’s focused on some official records that have been surreptitiously copied for him by a supporter, making notes to himself, sometimes muttering under his breath. The faint smell of his cheap shampoo gets slightly stronger with a sudden breeze from the window, making Takasugi’s nostrils flare.

I'll have to get rid of that one day, that annoying smell, he thinks to himself, but he's still preoccupied by his own meandering mind and when Zura rises to go it takes him by surprise, just a little.

“Already?” he says, keeping his tone indifferent.

“Nothing more to do,” says Zura, putting on the monk robes. He looks at Takasugi for a moment as if he’d like to add something, then just shakes his head to himself. Then he nudges the pile of papers with his foot, “I don’t need to keep these. You can give them to your strategist if you choose, I’ve noted down or memorized the important bits.”

Takechi may well get some use out of those records, although they didn’t seem to cover any area of immediate interest to Takasugi. “We don’t need your handouts,” he says anyway. “We have a lot more resources than you do, these days.”

Zura frowns. “So I’ve noticed. You’ve made some curious alliances.”

“Your scruples aren’t going to do you any favours,” says Takasugi, wondering but not caring which particular group Zura is referring to; as if all of his own financial backers are morally upright. For that matter, they share several well-off supporters between them. “It doesn’t matter if the vermin think I’m on their side, they’re all going down eventually.”

“At least keep those ties secret. They reflect badly on the movement as a whole,” mutters Zura, putting on his monk hat.

“’The movement’”, Takasugi mocks him, knocking out the ashes of his kiseru. “There’s not been _one_ movement since the war.” Zura thinks in terms of overturning the top of the country and building something new. That’s why he will fail. It only works if you focus on tearing it all down.

Zura sighs. “I don’t believe that,” he says earnestly ( _but that earnestness is a front_ , Takasugi thinks, _even if he doesn’t see it himself: he’s dumb but he’s too smart to be_ that _dumb_ ), “but there’s no reasoning with you. Good night.”

He slips out through the door, and Takasugi lets him go. It’s a quiet night, no need to get the last word in this time. 

Something is making his wound hurt more than usual. Perhaps it’s those recent reports from spies in Edo, about a white-haired samurai making his living as an odd jobs man. Perhaps such reports have been poking at Zura’s buzzing mind as well. _’See? He doesn’t care about you at all, or he would have made his presence known by now.’_ Takasugi might have mocked Zura like that, if he’d brought up the issue (which might have been why Zura didn’t: a more pleasant explanation than him being distastefully considerate of Takasugi). 

“And things were being so nice and quiet,” he says to the empty room, then chuckles at himself. He doesn’t think he will sleep well tonight.

* * *

“You need to stop thinking we’re friends,” Takasugi had told him calmly one night, that time in Chiba, eight years after the end of the war and two years before Gintoki was finally found again. Katsura remembered how there had been no light in the room except for the moonlight from the window and the dim glow of the firepot, reflecting in Takasugi’s eyes while the smoke was felt more than seen as it circled up to the ceiling. 

“We’re only on the same side,” he had continued. “For now. But I do things _my_ way now. You need to stop interfering.” There had been no warmth in his voice, not even the heat of anger.

“Then that goes the same for you as well,” Katsura had retorted curtly, hiding the hurt as he folded up the letter he’d been reading and put it inside his kimono, right next to the old green schoolbook. “You are not to interfere in the doings of my group either. And that includes carrying out attacks on the same target without coordinating our forces when you had been pre-informed of our plan. I had two men captured the other night, and one badly injured. That needn’t have happened.”

“You’re being too fussy and soft with them. You should be clearer right from the start what they can expect; then the three men you just lost would have been instantly replaced by double the amount.”

“My men are ready for sacrifice if it’s necessary,” protested Katsura. “But I don’t expect them to die. I expect them to fight hard and survive, for Japan’s sake. And _not_ be lost because of careless actions from an ally.” 

Takasugi sneered. “See? Already thinking more like a civilian than a general.”

“I haven’t changed my thinking since the war,” Katsura insisted stiffly, arms crossed.

Takasugi only smoked more deeply on his kiseru pipe and said nothing. The room was full of unsaid words; unlike the smoke, they couldn’t escape through the open window.

Katsura inched closer. “I want to kiss you,” he announced, tone still curt. 

Takasugi didn’t look surprised. He leaned back against the wall, lifting one hand lazily in a beckoning gesture. Katsura’s fingers closed on the kiseru pipe, determined to stop that mouth from smoking for a little while at least.

* * *

It's going to end soon, Takasugi knows, and surely Zura senses it as well, for all his delusions. It was a foregone conclusion to start with, but he can tell it’s approaching faster now, ever since Gintoki resurfaced from his hiding place. Whether the irreversible line between them will be drawn by Takasugi's sword, or events will force the break to happen a different way, this cannot continue much longer.

No more will he feel Zura's hands on him, the shuddering strength of those limbs, or the pesky presence of his grating concern, unwanted compassion; nor his silences, simultaneously tense and (uselessly) restful. No more will he feel that particular scent next to him as he wakes up, or see Zura's drowsy morning face framed and obscured by long uncombed hair as he sits up, his kimono hanging open for once. Nor will sunrays streak through shutters or blinders as they fuck just one more time before leaving, and Zura will no longer be tainted by Takasugi 's words or bloodstained fingers - that, at least, is something of a pity. 

He thinks the break, when it comes, will be more of a relief than anything else. Still, until then, he suspects Zura also thinks, like him, _It's okay for them to have this now, because it's going to end soon_.

* * *

Katsura has never been entirely sure if Takasugi hates his concern and compassion entirely and utterly, or if he finds those traits useful for manipulation, which could mean he tolerates them to some extent. Katsura does try to keep that side of him down for the most part when he's around Takasugi, not speaking of his worries all that often. 

But when they do peek through, it’s not always due to his own lowered defences. Sometimes it’s out of spite. If Takasugi will keep on with his dark nihilistic mutterings against the world, Edo, and Gintoki, Katsura will feel free to annoy the man in his own way.

* * *

"I know I'm not the one you truly need,” Zura told him once, his eyes looking even larger and more sorrowful than usual in the blurry grey light of the early dawn. He'd been standing by the door by then, putting on his outer robe as he was getting ready to leave. Takasugi wanted to hurt him.

He snickered coldly instead. "There's nobody I need who's still alive, except as mere tools. You’re neither needed or wanted, just tolerated.”

"There is one," said Zura, turning away as he bent down to put his shoes on.

The smile left Takasugi’s face for a moment. It had only been a few weeks since his plan to use the forlorn roboticist on the summer festival had failed. He leant towards the wall and crossed his arms. "All I need from that guy is to hear the crack of his spine shattering under my sword, to feel his throat crushed between my hands. Now, that's something I want."

Zura put on his hat and said nothing, just gave him a look of hurt disapproval before he opened the front door that made Takasugi chuckle. But there had been disbelief in it, too, as if he didn’t think Takasugi was serious deep down. 

Well, he’d learn, eventually. Takasugi finished the cup of tea Zura had made to wash away the sudden, bitter taste in his mouth.

* * *

He came once more to Takasugi’s current place in Edo. He couldn’t help but notice that his lodgings seemed to increase in quality for each time he had to move, which didn’t seem to be as often as Katsura had to change his own dwellings and meeting-places. Takasugi’s talent for finding and holding onto rich and influential sympathisers was more apparent than ever. 

It wasn’t long after Katsura had spent time hiding from the police in a ramen shop. The words and actions of Ikumatsu still haunted him. She, who had let him stay there while he was injured, even though she had been widowed by an action of the Jōi… 

Gintoki hadn’t been wrong, after all. If he kept on with the bombings like he had so far, regardless of what more innocent casualties that might result, that would just lead to more night, with no dawn to come. But it wasn’t easy to decide how to fight instead. What he needed was to find more people around him whose spirit could inspire him, who didn’t let themselves get beaten down by injustice but were able to give courage to others. People who were able to create instead of destroying.

So why, on this cold evening in spring, were his feet seeking out the one person who most certainly wouldn’t be able to provide for any of that, let alone show any understanding for Katsura’s new course? 

He couldn’t understand it himself. Yet here he was, sitting down in yet another well-guarded but pleasantly furnished and decorated room, having brought a few nuggets of information and questions as pretext, even though he could easily have sent one of his followers for that purpose instead. Here he sat quietly waiting, while his host played a few desultory notes on his shamisen without looking up, while that damn tobacco smell filled up the room, while a servant came by with two cups and two bottles of sake. He could have been at home with his new trusty companion or gone to spend time with Gintoki and his two young people, yet here he sat, wasting his time with someone he knew, deep inside, wouldn’t care for what he said and would never let him into his heart again.

Takasugi didn’t care about etiquette, so Katsura had to fill his cup on his own, grumbling. As his fingers closed around it, he thought of Gintoki’s shoulder bumping into his the other day, and the warmth of his hand under Katsura’s the last time there’d been an excuse to seize it to drag him along. They were reunited now, they were reconciled, things were fine… but Gintoki hadn’t reached out to kiss him even once, let alone do more than that. And Katsura had been unable to make himself take the first step. He knew he wanted that, his body ached to feel that closeness again. And he didn’t truly think it would be as unwelcome as all that on Gintoki’s side. Even if he were to be rejected, it would surely be with kindness. 

But still he wouldn’t go and sit by his side nor put his hands and lips on him, on someone he could take strength and comfort from. He went here instead. And not long after he’d finished the first cup of sake, his arms were reaching for Takasugi -- shamefully quickly, really.

 _You need to stop thinking we’re friends…_

Maybe that was what he needed. The hurt that would make him tougher. He’d decided the need to take a new course, but that didn’t mean he could let his heart grow as soft as a fluffy little kitten. 

Takasugi’s gaze was more unreadable than ever, and there was a weighing moment when Katsura felt almost sure he would be pushed away, but in the end Takasugi drained his second cup to the bottom and grasped Katsura with familiar impatience. 

Normally, he’d start with roughness and was just fine with Katsura being rough in return, only eventually letting a gentleness he didn’t ever seem to acknowledge into his touch. This time, his hands softened more quickly as usual, but his expression was distant, as if his mind was thinking of other things (of larger fires? of another set of hands, no matter how hated…?). It took a lot of fervour and energy on Katsura’s part to finally overwhelm him with pleasure, stuttering and moaning hoarsely _just so_ and glaring grumpily at him for it, too. That glare of his was an old habit that Katsura always liked to see again.

Katsura’s own head was spinning; he sighed and leaned forward for a moment, breathing the other in. Then abruptly he sat back and let go. 

(Later, after Benizakura, he looked back on that night and wondered if both of them had known, at some level, that it was the last time.)

After he’d washed and dressed himself, he returned to see Takasugi looking at a large sheet of paper, one with designs of some kind on it, which he folded up as Katsura stepped closer. 

“You’ve been ill recently, haven’t you?” Katsura said, having taken note of Takasugi’s paleness of skin and a raspy tone to his voice. “Was it a winter cold? It’s disappointing that you can’t be more careful.” He did his best to put a sneer into his voice to make the concern less obvious. 

“Not as disappointing as a grown man who’s obsessed with mothering other grown men despite being so abjectly bad at it,” replied Takasugi coolly.

Katsura huffed. “Even Gintoki is at least smart enough to come out of the rain these days. He’s been healthy the whole winter, you know. You’re the only one who’ll never learn.”

An unkind smile flashed over Takasugi’s face. Then he rose and stepped very close to Katsura, grabbing him by the shoulder none too gently, leaning in close. A shiver ran down Katsura's back, but he gave Takasugi a flat unimpressed look all the same.

"He doesn't need you these days, right? Isn't that it? Isn't that why you come here?" Takasugi ran his fingers through Katsura's hair. "I don't need you either, but at least I tolerate you, I don't push you away the way he does."

That wasn’t entirely true. Tonight he’d been accommodating, but at other times Takasugi was adept at giving Katsura a cold shoulder when it suited him -- not that he could be said to ever truly offer warmth these days, only a blazing conflagration of destruction…. But Katsura didn't feel the need to point that out. 

He grasped Takasugi by the wrist, holding it up, thinking of how Takasugi would turn vicious in a heartbeat when Katsura was the one to bring Gintoki up - as if Takasugi wasn't constantly invoking him with every spiteful word and brooding gesture.

“Believe what you want,” he said, keeping his tone even. “But you’re not all wrong. If there’s someone he needs from the past, it’s more likely to be you than me.”

“If he’s feeling suicidal, he can seek me out anytime,” said Takasugi, his tone light and easy. “I am going to kill him one day, you know. It would be fun if you could hang around to watch it. But without being able to intervene.” He smiled. “I think I would like that.”

Katsura wanted to tell him, _Just wait. If I can’t bring you back, he can._ But that felt not just like too much provocation, but too much naked hope to put into spoken words and let out into the air like tobacco smoke. 

Instead, he just closed his eyes in a tired expression and let go of Takasugi’s wrist, shaking his other hand off his shoulder. “You’re impossible,” he said. “I don’t even know why I come here.”

“I just explained it to you.” Takasugi dropped the smile and took on a bored tone. “You’re just lost as usual, Zura. Futilely trying to look for a place where you’re needed.”

Katsura looked at him quietly for a long moment. He wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t wrong, but…

 _I can still be strong enough._ He turned and left without another word, with more weight but also more purpose to his steps than when he’d come. Sometimes Takasugi’s underestimation could be oddly motivating.


	3. It Shouldn't Be This Damn Difficult To Put One And One And One Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set from the end of the Benizakura arc to some point after the Shinigami arc but before the Shogun Assassination arc.

The parachute landed as reasonably close to this distant part of the harbour as they could have hoped for. Katsura tugged them to the nearby pier while Gintoki clutched at what he could grab of the parachute, floating along as best as he could. Katsura had felt the pain from his wound flare up ever since they’d escaped from the airship and the battle adrenaline no longer kept it at bay; the shock of the cold water only providing a slight numbness to it. Gintoki had clearly suffered even more recent wounds, fighting the Benizakura. Glancing at him over his shoulder, Katsura was concerned about his pale face and the distant, drowsy look in his eyes. 

But they managed to reach the closest pier and even found a ladder to climb up out of the water, both collapsing on all fours, exhausted and shivering. Relief flooded him: they’d made it to dry land, they would surely be okay soon, it just didn’t make sense otherwise. He was too tired to question the logic of that. 

Of course, he did know that they were exposed right here, a sight for people to gawk at and report. They both urgently needed medical care and to be able to rest somewhere safe. They needed to find their people quickly to get help. But still… They were back in the city and had left the immediate enemy territory of the airship. That ship now lay at the bottom of the bay with its load of corpses and crushed dreams (dreams of destruction, but also of reconciliation). The parachute escape was over and they were back in the familiarly nebulous enemy territory of the city, which Gintoki didn’t even consider as such. The enemy was not the same one, of course. 

Katsura managed to raise his head, squinting against the sun. His head was aching, like so much of his body. But he grabbed hold of a bargepole and laboriously hoisted himself up. 

"Gintoki? Can you walk?" he asked. "We should get out of the open. Don't want the police to find us." Gintoki might not get arrested, but he'd have to put up with tiresome interrogations when he ought to be resting for at least a week in bed at home.

Gintoki looked at him with bleary eyes. "Few steps, I guess." He took a deep breath but made it up on his own. 

"Good," said Katsura, relieved. "I hope your people 'n' mine are coming soon." His words were starting to get blurry, tongue heavier than usual. Gintoki didn't look too good either, face drawn and pale, eyes too far away. They started to drag themselves away, arms across each other's shoulders, walking laboriously like they had just returned from battlefields of old. Just this one step, just this next one, just one more till they’d left the pier and reached the nearest street, just a few more till they were at this sidestreet, just one more step, then just one step more, all the time stumbling and shivering. 

The direction was just vaguely towards where the Kabuki district should be, still a long way off. Katsura had no idea where their companions were by now, else he’d have tried to walk in the direction they might come from. But there were a number of different places where Elizabeth and the others could have landed their escape ship. 

"Zura..." mumbled Gintoki, his breath hot in Katsura's ear.

"It's Katsura," said Katsura mechanically.

"Nah. 'S Lupin. Hold on..."

"What?" Katsura stopped, wondering if Gintoki was growing delirious. The Lupin reference felt like ages ago now - an hour, at least. "Do you need to rest?" Perhaps those steps over on the other side of this narrow sidestreet could be of use... But Gintoki was grabbing the top of his kimono, pulling him back towards him. He didn't say anything else: he just held him by the shoulders and kissed him on the mouth.

Oh. "Ah. Um. Yes. I suppose..." Katsura stuttered.

Gintoki pulled him close again. Almost reflexively, his brain not seeming to make the decision, Katsura took a firmer grip on Gintoki’s own kimono and met him halfway for a second kiss. 

"...I suppose there was just that one more thing to do," he mumbled after they broke it off. Ten years. Right now, it didn’t feel like it at all. 

“S’ not something onna list,” muttered Gintoki. He turned his face forward and pulled Katsura towards him again through the grip on his shoulder, this time just mashing their cheeks together.

“You’re silly,” said Katsura breathlessly.

“No, I’m not. That’s always you.” Gintoki’s voice was close and near. They were walking forward again without Katsura being able to say who’d moved first. He didn’t know if any onlookers were gawking at them, he didn’t look around, too tired, too full of everything to care. 

His fingers suddenly felt too short, too stubby and awkward; he wanted to reach out and grab the very sunrays, not just clutch Gintoki's shoulder and the fabric of his shirt ineffectively; he wanted to twist the trembling moment and wrap it around them, letting it envelop them till they could think of nothing else. He wanted to stop again right there, just to run his hands through Gintoki's hair over and over, breathing in his smell no matter how much it was overlaid by sweat and blood and exhaustion. 

The sounds of the city around them didn't bring him back to sober discretion, they just helped the moment feel even more real. The two of them stumbled forward, aching and shivering, step by step. No kisses now, no caresses: just two old war buddies slowly making their way forward, leaning on one another after having been in one tough scrape. But to Katsura it felt like they were holding hands.

* * *

_‘What took you so long?’_ was something Zura didn’t ask him, as they kept slowly straggling forward, cold and wet from the harbour, cheeks still so very close to each other, Gintoki’s own lips still tasting of Zura’s even though it had only been two kisses. It would perhaps have been the right moment to ask, in those few short minutes before Shinpachi and Kagura and Elizabeth and Tetsuko finally spotted them and brought real help. But they never asked each other that kind of thing.

And if he had done so anyway, Gintoki wouldn’t have known what to answer. ‘I could say the same to you’ ? No -- it was true, but he’d known all along that Zura simply wouldn’t be the first one to reach out. ‘I just wasn’t in the mood for it’ ? No, that was a lie, and of the kind that would stick in his throat. And he certainly couldn’t reply, ‘I didn’t think I could believe in your forgiveness’ . Which was true, all too true, and utterly impossible to say. 

Nor could he have said the first thing he was thinking of, in those late-night moments when all the what-if thoughts he pushed away during the day crowded up his mind. _’I couldn’t reclaim you while he still had a hold on you.’_

What kind of stupid romance manga bullshit way of thinking was that? Zura was his own person, and _that bastard_ didn’t have any claim on him, just like Gintoki didn’t, either.

But Gintoki hadn’t been around. Had been gone, for ten years. Ducked out of sight, drawn first deep under water, then -- as he was pulled from the brink of death by an executioner, then pulled from starvation by a snack bar granny with a scary face and a heart the size of a city -- slowly being dragged onto the shore, putting pieces of himself back, finding a way to earn money and live. But he’d stayed away from the other two, had assumed they wouldn’t want him around, and not been sure himself he could stand to be around them, either. Until the day when Katsura pulled that embassy bomb stunt and it turned out that while they disagreed on important things they could still talk to each other, could still make a place for each other in their lives again. 

Not the case with _that bastard_ , obviously. But that -- Well -- it was only to be expected. 

But still -- Takasugi had been around for Zura, when Gintoki wasn’t. The way he was, these days, maybe that hadn’t been a blessing, but -- Gintoki wasn’t there, he couldn’t know. That was the whole point. And for Takasugi too, Zura had been there when Gintoki wasn’t.

So it was all the more important now, as that airship had gone down in flames, as the Kiheitai had left the scene on their new pirate allies’ spaceship, as Zura had looked up again in that sad wistful way while they were parachuting down -- that he wouldn’t be dragged down into cold numbness or blazing destruction, that Gintoki could anchor him to earth, to Edo, and give him what warmth he could offer, that he would remind him that he was Zura as well and not only the general Katsura. So he wouldn’t lose him, too.

And he found he could warm himself in Zura’s open arms, too. To be soothed like that again, to be welcomed -- it was strange, but it was _all right_. He felt that, finally. Ten years had passed, and Benizakura had happened, and it was all right. For now.

* * *

Wounds healed and hair grew out and everyday life went on in its rhythm of both increasing bustle (making new connections, new people to argue with, new people to call his own) and enduring slowness (there were still many quiet days without a single client). There were days of chaotic action -- often ridiculous, sometimes all too serious, and sometimes you weren’t quite aware which was which until it was over -- in between the many days of nothing much happening. It was easy to just lean back and bob along in the comforting chaos. Sometimes he could even be good for something. And the kids were there to help and to hound him. 

They were all stuck in Sazae-san time, seasons following one another but nobody growing older. Breathing space. They could pretend things didn’t have to be serious again, that they were safely leading comedy lives now. Zura and him both played their part, as they would zero in on small things that didn’t truly matter but which both of them would argue at length and with apparent great conviction. Low-stakes quarrels, reassuring and comforting. Sometimes you could fool yourself that life could just keep going on like this.

There were times when he wanted Zura to be just a _little_ bit more serious, mostly so Gintoki could be the one telling him to shut up and stop worrying (like he did tell him to stop fussing, stop being so gloomy, stop nagging me, stop being such a wet rag killjoy; like in the old days) -- but he never wanted him to be _too_ serious, not to step out of the pretense and the illusion entirely. In any case, Zura would rarely comply. Instead he would derail even more into lunatic antics and the most convoluted delusions, almost as if he was taunting him. Maybe that didn’t matter too much, because Gintoki could still shut him up with a kiss, and they could still steal longer moments of private time in-between the chaos, despite the fact they were both always broke and had permanent housemates. 

Zura’s body didn’t feel fundamentally different under Gintoki’s hands since the war days, despite many new scars; still sinewy, strong, and way too skinny. But he was more sure of himself now, of his likes and dislikes, prudent but less prudish when they were alone, and more adventurous when it came to exploring Gintoki’s body and learning what pleased him now, setting Gintoki’s head spinning, making him intent on repaying the favour. He, like Gintoki, never discussed whether they could keep doing this; neither of them called it a bad idea or a good idea. It simply was. 

Saying there was someone they missed in those moments would be like saying they wanted the bleeding edge of a sword. Maybe it wasn’t untrue. But it was still madness.

* * *

* * *

But that madness was--

* * *

No. Don’t say it. Stay here, in this now. Slumped over some greasy bar table, late at night. Stumbling up on tired legs to make breakfast for Kagura and himself. The wind in his hair while driving his moped, Shinpachi holding onto him and diligently upbraiding him for something. The eternal steps with the old bat in the rent ballet. His arms encircling Zura’s waist from behind, letting his lips hover over his reddening cheek. All those thousands of everyday moments.

Stay here.

There is something beating its wings inside his chest, fluttering like a butterfly, struggling to get out. But they are still here. It’s not time.

_Don’t say it._

* * *

* * *

After Benizakura, the pull of everyday Gintama flow, the one that Katsura has resolved to embrace ever since he realized he’s in a manga story and didn’t want to be left behind -- that pull has grown stronger in consequence of an old path (an old bond) being obliterated and erased. He does wish sometimes he was as good at sinking into everyday life as Gintoki is. For Katsura, it’s more of a balancing act. He can’t reach the peaceful civilian shore, that is simply not permitted. But he can cheat and scrounge and focus on smaller objectives, he can postpone and ponder; he can lean just a little bit on the fourth wall to help him escape from captivity. He has no intention to stick around for any execution that would finish off an important secondary character like him. 

He has to be strong and he will be strong, but he can let himself relax a little, too. There are so many things he needs to hold, yet at times he feels that he can let go of them for an instant without letting them fall and break. He can seize them again, unhurt and hovering; the magic of Sazae-san time and episodic structure allows for it. 

And he can try to shield Gintoki, just a little, to warm him against the terrible cold that he must feel more than anybody else. 

It’s a reprieve, a time to breathe and gain strength. And Katsura can indulge in his own way.

* * *

Sometimes he sits and watches Gintoki's sleeping face at night, wondering, _Do I want to whisk you away somewhere where you could be safe from him?_ , knowing there probably is no such place. _Do I want to use you as a way to stop him, even if that means his death, or even as a way to try to save him? You're the only one who ever could, you know. Save him._

He sighs softly, head slumped. The night is growing lighter and grayer, approaching dawn. _As if it even matters what I want._ Those two will do what their natures drive them to do anyway. It's foolish to try to stop it.

Let him be a fool many times over, then. And screw their damn natures.

* * *

Sakamoto’s voice is nearly drowned out by the noise in the bar. “I know what you’re doing, Zura,” he says, chin resting in hand, pouring more wine into Katsura’s glass.

It’s the night after the Jōi reunion party, which in retrospect feels like it went past way too quickly. Sakamoto has invited them both out for a drink; Gintoki, surprisingly, turned it down, claiming to be tired. Katsura accepted only on the condition that he could choose the place, avoiding Sakamoto’s expensive cabaret hang-outs.

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura,” he mutters now, glaring at the red wine before slowly raising the glass and sipping from it, mostly to have something to do. He’s not meeting Sakamoto’s gaze, but he feels the warmth of it on his face. They’ve been here for a good while now.

“You’re tryin’ not t'be selfish,” continues Sakamoto. “Tellin’ yourself the important bit is that those other two are all right, ‘cause then you’ll feel happy too, an’ besides you’ll always be able to handle stuff. Right?”

Katsura stiffens, his grip on the wine glass increasing in strength. Sakamoto doesn’t know. Neither Katsura nor Gintoki have told him about how things are with Takasugi now, nothing about Benizakura or any of the rest of it. Katsura isn’t even sure if he prefers for Sakamoto not to know at all, or if he’d rather Sakamoto just raise the issue so Katsura can tell him finally. Simply to get it over with. 

Yet he just can’t seem to make himself talk about it without being asked directly. And Sakamoto never asks. 

“What are you trying to say?” he says now, his tongue feeling thick.

Sakamoto sighs, though Katsura can still hear a smile in his voice as he replies, “Nothin’ much, ahahaha! I ain’t going to scold ya an’ say you could stand to be more selfish. You’re doin’ the best you can, aren’t ya?”

Katsura exhales, telling himself to relax more, his shoulders easing. _It’s all right. It’s just Sakamoto._ “That’s… that’s a curious way of looking at it,” he says.

Sakamoto’s hand is warm on his back. “I guess, but it’s true, ain’t it?”

Katsura finally echoes his gesture and rests his chin on his palm, even if he doesn’t slump as much as Sakamoto. “I’m not sure,” he mumbles, not bothering to raise his voice to be heard through all the chatter and music around them. “Selfishness or unselfishness… The main thing is if it works or not, isn’t it?” He sighs again, spreading out his other hand, palm up. “I don’t know how to make it work,” he confesses, in a way he only ever could to this man. “They’re just… It’s hard, Sakamoto. It’s just hard.”

“I know.” Sakamoto lets his hand stay on Katsura’s back. He’s looking straight ahead now, that idealistic visionary look on his face that’s pure Tatsuma. “‘Course it’s gotta be. They’re such numbskulls. You an’ me can be idiots too, but we have nothin’ on those loons. Ahhh… sometimes I wish I could just scoop all of you up on my spaceships an’ spare you from all of this. But then you’d leave Earth all alone and that wouldn’t be good.”

Katsura smiles a little. “I think trouble would just come aboard with us then.” 

“Ahahahaha, I’m sure it would!” laughs Sakamoto, then waves at the bartender for a bottle of sake.

Katsura will never admit it, but there is something appealing in the thought, being whisked away from reality for a while. For Gintoki especially he would want that, more than for himself. Even if their reality in truth is all too tangled up with the existence of space travel to start with...

But Sakamoto is their friend and their great hidden hope. And that’s exactly why they mustn’t take his kindness for granted and abuse it too much. Then how could he show up to help at the moment when they need him the most? 

“Don’t drink too much, you know you’ll just throw it all up,” he tells Sakamoto, but undermines his message immediately by accepting a cup of sake himself and drinking it up. He doesn’t mind staying here for a while longer.

* * *

* * *

They hardly ever talk about him during all that time, and when they do, Gintoki’s not the one to bring him up. There’s no use to it. Until the right day, until the right time, words are just going to tumble down aimlessly like bricks of a demolished building. He knows the fight will come one day and so does Zura. He turns his back on that knowledge for a long time, but he never denies it, never throws it away. 

He fights for a child to be reunited with his mother, for a friend to be freed from the grasp of her unworthy master and see her own worth; he fights twice for his home, first for the old bat and then for his own identity; he fights for Zura’s friend in space and for a thorny police friend in Edo; he fights the top of the country for the sake of a dying courtesan; he fights the returned old friend of Otae and Shinpachi who’s not who he seems to be; and he fights for a young executioner who keeps stealing his nipple. Each time is like a wave carrying him closer to shore. Or has he been swimming under water and is now pulled to the surface? Each time he feels like his eyes have grown sharper, his bladework tighter, his soul more focused. And it gets harder and harder to just _stay here_ , when the _here_ grows ever smaller and more fragile, even as he can sense Kagura, Shinpachi and himself grow stronger. 

Maybe that’s why he raises his voice and calls out for Zura to join him and Hasegawa one night as he passes them by right outside the bar they’re heading for. He expects to be snubbed, but Zura must be in a contrarian “can’t do what Gintoki expects” mood, because he gives them a disapproving look yet sweeps past them to enter the bar haughtily, lecturing them while he makes his thrifty order.

They drink and bicker and talk a lot of nonsense, and some time during the night Hasegawa drifts away somewhere, perhaps after their third bar. Gintoki’s mind grows pretty muddled for a while, but starts to clear up after he’s thrown up over the side of a bridge. A handkerchief is waved in his face, and he takes it, then glances up. In the pale moonlight, Zura’s features look hazy, his eyes a little distant, and his cheeks are rosy. He says something in a low voice that takes Gintoki a moment to parse. Something like ‘I should be the one to fight him’. 

“Who’re you talkin’ about?” All Gintoki can think of right then is the owner of the last bar they were at. “Don’ be like that, Zura, I mean we _were_ pretty noisy…” Not that Zura’s ever been much for bar brawls, apart from the regular bickering with Gintoki that he doesn’t need booze to accomplish. 

But Zura just sighs, and Gintoki snaps out of that confused trail of thought, a chill seeping through him. He wipes his face on the handkerchief and hands it back as he straightens up, one hand still taking support from the handrail. “You don’t mean that last bar owner,” he says quietly, looking out into the night just like Katsura.

“I don’t.” Zura puts his hands into his sleeves. “Gintoki,” he says, tone slow, serious, voice still held low, “if I fight him, it’s not going to be nice. It will be a hard, brutal thing. It won’t be anything - anything that could be purifying. I won’t be able to save him, I will only do it to stop him.” He pauses, still not moving his head or even his gaze to look at Gintoki. “It won’t be the fight he wants,” he continues, tone even more quiet than before. His face looked melancholy but… certain. All too certain.

“Zura…” Gintoki starts, then stops. He doesn’t know how to even start to put this into words.

“Listen, Gintoki.” _Now_ Zura finally turns his head to look at him, fixing him intently. “It won’t be the fight he wants, no. But I should still be the one to do it. You have too many people who need you. And also… You’re strong, the strongest of us, but against him I’m not sure you could win. But I _know_ I can fight him and win. There is too much at stake.” His hands are grasping the wooden rail tightly; he’s trembling, very slightly. “Not everything can be about what Takasugi wants.”

_All this time when we’ve hardly talked about him and now you’re coming out with all of this?_ Gintoki stands very still. Not that long ago he might have said nothing. But now, after he’s stood with Asaemon on that bridge, and was nearly cut through; after she’s attacked all three of them on the riverbank, slicing without touching them, freeing them instead -- now, the thoughts are gleaming moon-bright, too sharp and present and true to be avoided. 

“You’re speaking like you think I’d be storming off towards his H.Q., wherever that is, and demand to fight him tomorrow,” he says, equally quiet as Zura. “You know as well as me that when I fight him” -- he doesn’t bother saying _if_ \-- “it’s going to be because I’ll stand between him and something he wants to destroy.” He pauses a moment, then says, almost as an afterthought, “Besides me.”

“And what do you think you’re talking about, too many relying on me?” he adds in a louder voice. “Then what about you and the damn country, huh? What about bringing in the new dawn of Japan?”

Zura frowns. “Since when do you believe in that?”

He waves that aside. “Doesn’t matter. You believe it. People believe in you.” A deep breath; his voice drops lower again. “I believe in you, too. But I don’t think… I don’t think it will work out like that. True, you’re still important to him. It will hurt him if you die. So you _are_ a main target, because he wants to be hurt. But not…” _You’re not his alter ego. Not the one he focuses on to make it hurt the most. Not the one who hurt him the deepest before._ “Not as much as me,” he finishes, voice hoarse. “I get him, Zura. I know this. He will zoom in on me.”

Zura crosses his arms and gives Gintoki a long look. “Gintoki. We made that declaration together. You’re not supposed to carry it alone.”

Gintoki sighs, slumping. He draws a hand through his hair, wishing he could get back to being drunk. “If I’m wrong… If I’m wrong, or if I fail, I know you will take care of it.” 

A flash of intense, _tired_ anger passes over Zura’s beautiful features. Then it passes and he slumps as well. Right then a cloud covers the moon, making it too dark to make out his expression -- the nearest street light is too far. 

It can’t be helped. Gintoki rolls his shoulders, swallowing to keep his uneasy stomach steady, hoping he won’t need to throw up a second time. “Need to get home,” he mutters, turning and starting to walk, then realises he faces the wrong side of the bridge and turns again. The moon shines clear once more, and he avoids Zura’s gaze on him as he walks.

It can’t be helped. _Gintoki, take care of them for me, will you? It’s a promise._ It’s not Zura’s fault that he hadn’t been the one who was told that.

Gintoki doesn’t know if there’s anything that can be done anymore for the three of them, three torn-out pieces of a picture, scattered and wind-swept, brought together and kept apart by so many things, ragged and broken, one and one and one...

But the two of them still walk together for a while, going home in silence in the moonlight.


	4. It's Not Love Triangle, It's Shōka Sonjuku

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter starts towards the end of canon and ends several years after canon.

This patch of the woods is old forest, the sun streaking down through gaps in the leaves, with scattered glimpses of high blue sky in the otherwise compact obscurity. Yet people live not far from here, and there are plenty of traces of civilization. He doesn't remember walking down this particular path before, but it might have happened, years ago. When he came to the school last year, to bring Oboro’s ashes there, he took another route entirely.

This time the ruins of the school are not his main goal. Perhaps the new trail he has been picking up, the clues about the movement of the Naraku and the rumours among the Seibōists, could even have been pursued down a different route in the area, even if the dragon’s vein runs so close to the school. But Takasugi doesn’t even consider that as an option. It’s simply obvious he should go there again.

Today the state of his body hasn’t bothered him much, and he’s been making good time. He’s hardly even sensed any of Zura’s hired eyes gazing at him from afar, from the shadows. Zenzô Hattori of the Oniwabanshu must be taking a break right now -- he’s the ninja that’s proved the hardest to shake. 

Looking down at a clearing from a hill in the forest, he can smell the scent of late-summer flowers in the air, tangy and placid, yet with an undertone of suffused desperation, as if they are all too aware of autumn coming. It doesn’t make any difference to him. He prefers the smell of burning wood, himself, but also the smell of living pine. 

There have been a couple of coded messages from Zura, brief but not without interest. Among all the people spying on him, only that same Zenzô Hattori has been trusted to carry those notes, and with the even briefer replies Takasugi gives in return. His replies haven't had much in them, just a few hints about the enemy, nothing about the state of his own body, and very veiled hints about Shōyō-sensei. 

The other day, though, they had an actual telephone call, in a small village that still kept a payphone. It had rung just as Takasugi was passing by. How ridiculous. 

The busy, prickly voice at the other end of the telephone line had started by asking about their classmate Yusuke from back in the day, which was obviously a trick question meant to minnow imposters out since he was actually called Yōsuke. Except that Zura had gotten it into his head that it _was_ Yusuke and stubbornly insisted on it, wasting time. 

But after that he’d said, briskly enough, “It’s getting hotter here. We could use some cooling breeze from the countryside. Will you be coming soon?” 

So he was worried about the growing strength of the enemy. 

“I’m sure it’s nothing you can’t handle,” said Takasugi. “I’m not really someone people rely on to cool anything down, you know.” He paused, then said, “What about the ice you usually have over there, is it not around?”

“I believe it will return soon enough, perhaps when you do,” Zura replied. By now his voice had shed some of the arrogant tones belonging to his prime ministerial persona and sounded like just plain Zura again, more worried than annoyed. Well, of course. Gintoki, the “ice” in question, apparently hadn’t been in Edo for a while.

“Oh? Then this cool breeze might just scatter that lousy sugared ice,” said Takasugi, “so it won’t return at all.”

Zura tsked, sounding twelve years younger. “I have an exit plan for this job,” he said abruptly. “Maybe you can help me out with that.” He paused, seeming to draw breath. Takasugi said nothing.

“Just take care,” Zura finished, and hung up.

That was two days ago. It comes back to Takasugi, now, as he makes his way down the wooded hillside, cutting free of the thicket with his sword, not bothering to detour. Coming there from the seat of power, in the midst of propaganda and counterpropaganda, under a fake name and constantly spreading misdirections… and even so, Zura’s voice had still sounded startlingly _real_. More real in fact than any human sound that Takasugi had heard in a long time. Even sounds of wind and birdsong and thunderstorms feel less real to him now than they used to, but Zura sounds the same as always. 

Ages ago, he vaguely recalls now, he’d thought of Zura as the unreal one. But the world has changed and he himself is not much more than a ghost these days, just barely more present and anchored in the world than his big brother disciple living underneath his skin. 

And he knows that when he next sees Zura, there will be a fight. Almost certainly that’s what the ‘exit plan’ remark alluded to -- but he suspects it would happen in any case, planned or not. It seems Zura has finally grown into that kind of sword-blank honesty, certainly different from what there is between Gintoki and Takasugi -- a flash of lightning more than raging fire -- but ready to strike all the same, instead of standing back aloofly. Takasugi supposes he can only approve.

* * *

As a haggard kind of fate would have it, he did stumble on that very bag of sugary ice before long, right by the ruins of the school. Takasugi didn’t linger for a sentimental reunion; he simply attacked Gintoki as a way of greeting and told him this matter should be left to the ghosts. Best for him to go back and play house again in Edo. 

But that was before the Naraku came swarming, not sharing that view of the permhead’s irrelevance at all, hunting him down right as Matako and Takechi approached him. Takasugi had stayed hidden until then, but at that point he realized what Gintoki must have been carrying. After a moment of dizziness, of reverberation, he had jumped into the fight, his tainted blood surging. 

He’d tried and failed to steal the heart for himself. The ship he’d arranged passage with earlier had turned up at the right time, helping him aboard. Gintoki managed to climb aboard too. 

After that, they talked. 

And then, after they had both told their stories, after both had learned what the other had been doing these past two years, Takasugi asked Gintoki to team up with him. To go with him and save Sensei. Gintoki didn’t say he definitely would, but he looked back and didn’t say no, didn’t point out that Takasugi had changed his tune. It was an unspoken ‘yes’ - for now, at least. It would do.

Now it’s two days later, and the boat is making good time. The two of them are having dinner in Takasugi’s cabin, sniping at each other, scuffling a bit, but Takasugi manages to finish his food without anything stolen or spilled that he actually wanted to eat, which he smugly claims as a victory. 

Slowly, they both fall quiet. Instead of digging up some dumb insult, Gintoki is gazing at him silently, face expressionless, but with too much going on behind those eyes. Suddenly Takasugi feels annoyingly aware of where Gintoki touched his wrist and the back of his hand a few minutes ago while trying to steal a rice ball. 

He glares down at those invisible spots on his skin. If it didn’t sound so lame, he might have called it a tingle: the sensation is spreading, now, down his arm and up to his fingertips. He decides that it’s just because he doesn’t feel like waiting to see how strong this sensation is that he leans in close and grabs Gintoki by the shoulder. If he’s going to do this, he’s not just going to be swept along uselessly. His kiss has teeth in it. 

It's been thirteen years since that one time back during the war. Gintoki's moves are slower, now, no longer in such a hurry, at least to start with; Takasugi grudgingly turns down his own impatience a fraction, clutching his fingers in Gintoki's damn ridiculous hair and scratching his back to step up the pace a little but also takes a deep breath to control his rhythm and meet Gintoki halfway. Gintoki makes a bit of a face, then pulls Takasugi into his lap, his hands roaming under his kimono, up and down his back; Takasugi hisses in surprised arousal as Gintoki bites his earlobe. _Let him have this for now; in a few minutes I'll flip him_ , Takasugi decides, not even reflecting on the fact that he's now making impromptu plans for their fucking as if it was a fight (nor does he reflect if Gintoki will prove to be as unpredictable as when he's fighting).

He adjusts his seating and makes his counter-move, satisfaction growing as Gintoki growls wordlessly in response to being flipped, squirming very nicely underneath him. _Don't hold back._ The pace is picking up.

* * *

An unknown amount of time later, there is a shift in the air, a change in the tempo that’s more than just needing a breather. One of them slows down again, and the other follows; but this time, Takasugi couldn’t say who does what. 

The earlier frenzy ceases, his fingers smooth out from being claws, instead they seem to turn into antennae that pick up the tremor and texture of every piece of skin and hair. The moves and sounds and distinct seconds in this here and now all split up and drift apart, the pieces floating away from them into the sea of night. 

It occurs to him that the two of them aren’t enough to bring those pieces together -- not these two good-for-nothings always tied together at each side of a scale, a constantly oscillating seesaw. They would need Zura here for something like that. He could keep it all together.

He lets the thought go (besides, this isn’t meant to be about pieces brought together smoothly, just tumbling fiercely one last time) at the sound of another moan from Gintoki, managing a smug smirk despite his own flushed and sweaty face and messy hair. Gintoki swears and grabs his shoulders roughly, pulling him down once more.

* * *

Hours later, in the middle of the night, he wakes up with nausea and coughs up blood once more. It doesn’t matter.

* * *

* * *

Climbing up a building, the strong wind pulling at his kimono and messing up his hair, Katsura pauses for a few moments and adjusts his grip. The smell of the sea follows the wind, and so does a feeling of greater opportunities and something one might call freedom. 

He never disliked his well-tailored Western clothes that he’s just dumped into a canal, marred by fake blood and tied to a brick. But he doesn’t think he’ll miss them, either, or the manic energy they inhabited along with his prime ministerial persona. 

Or maybe he will miss it, a little bit, if he gets to survive the upcoming battle and is able to look back and reflect. There’s no denying that it has been exciting to be the country’s first prime minister, in some ways quite fulfilling even. He threw himself into his task wholeheartedly even if his name was fake and his attitude deliberately off-putting. Soyo will no doubt reverse some of his deliberately unpopular decisions, pleasing many, but he trusts she will leave the important deeper structural reforms untouched. Or he will have to rebel again. He’s spent his politician days outwitting assassins, building alliances, wheedling for loans from Amanto powers (and from some foreign Earth nations less badly hit by the past 22 years), pushing through egalitarian laws, building the basis of a new school system, putting together a constitution, and keeping tabs on the return of the Tendōshu and the subsequent rise of the Seibō cult. 

The work is not done, it’s not the kind of work that can truly be done for good. But he finally feels like he’s done enough that he would be able to look Shōyō-sensei in the eye now, if he came back. 

And so now he’s free to just go and be Kotarō Katsura again. 

He continues his climb, his pace a little slower now, taking care not to be seen by the Seibōists who are also ascending this building and are clearly targeting Gintoki and Takasugi on the neighbour roof. Judging by the stances of the latter two, they might get too busy charging each other to take much notice. Katsura suspects Takasugi still hasn’t let Gintoki in on the whole plot, leaving him to draw the worst conclusions about the Space Terminal blowing up and the presumed death of Zuramp. 

Having reached the roof, he sighs to himself and smiles a little. There’s still so much grief and pain, and the shock of seeing Takasugi’s pale, wan face from earlier today still hasn’t left him entirely. “But now we’re here,” he whispers to himself. “We can risk it all, together.” And he can’t help but think, as he readies himself to leap into action -- he intends to grab Sensei’s heart for himself, at least for a moment or two -- that somehow things will turn out all right in the end. All the doubts are gone from his heart.

_We can do this._

Spread your wings, and fly. He wasn’t going to let them leave him out anymore.

* * *

But in the end, it still comes down to the other two, bearing the whole weight of what has shaped them, of what they face; it's they who have to rescue, defeat, purify, sacrifice, kill, and, for one of them, die. Katsura is left to be support, to hold everything together as well as he can. He is spared the pain of those last dreadful seconds. He's not allowed the chance to say goodbye.

He is overwhelmed, not yet by cold loss, but a kind of enormous, unbearable tenderness. But he holds his ground, and endures.

* * *

* * *

* * *

They’d come to the end of it all once more, and not all had been lost to grief and darkness, not this time. But too much had still been torn away from his hands that was precious. 

What did you do? Well, Gintoki had done this before, and it was harder the last time. He knew, deep in his bones: you picked the pieces of yourself up and let the stream of life carry you onwards. You went on holding those shards of memory close, jagged edges and all.

You didn’t forget a single word, a single second. You kept it all inside your chest, took a deep breath, and held still. While life kept happening around you.

There were times when he felt like he wanted to talk to Zura, that maybe he ought to do that. To say how different it felt to believe someone deeply lost when he was still alive, and to have that someone truly be irretrievably gone, but not before they had been more close than ever. Those two directions of pain and weight. 

Several times he felt like saying such things even if it was obvious, until at last he had dreamed about that kind of discussion so often he would start to forget he'd never actually told this to Zura. But then again he was sure Zura already knew all of that.

What neither of them would touch upon, both silently agreeing not to raise the issue, was that perhaps _irretrievably gone_ wasn't entirely true after all.

Should they hope? Would it be a sin to hope? Gintoki didn’t know.

He stayed away, mostly, from the town where Matako and the boy lived. He never visited their house during all that time, or even talked to the boy, except for once.

* * *

Finding out how to go on wasn’t easy. It felt like there were a lot of false starts. And maybe it was due to all that Altana or the weird, unfocused feeling of the manga ending or something else, but a sense of irreality hung over Katsura for a long while afterwards. 

He put on a mask to play vigilante for a while, the fake ghost of the fake prime minister. It seemed to annoy Gintoki, but he never asked Katsura why he was doing it, or even asked him to stop. Katsura thought it was obvious that even a kinder, gentler Shinsengumi (now with ex-Jōi colleagues among other parts in the city police) would still encounter plenty of resentment and hostility. Oba-Z the vigilante was an outlet for those sentiments, acting in favour of legitimate grievances on the one hand and preventing more destructive acts on the other. Soyo had him come in as a secret government consultant a couple of times a month. Apart from that, he floundered, sometimes helping out at Hokuto Shinken, sometimes taking on various part-time jobs in Kabuki like in the old days. Some days he would aimlessly stroll through the city for hours on his own, thoughts spinning but not finding firm footing. 

Then, from his old net of connections and new ones, reports started to come in, of a mid-sized town far from Edo which had a lot of tolerance for people with checkered pasts who now wanted a life in quiet. Her real name didn’t figure in the reports. A woman who was still wanted by the law, still considered too high-profile to be put on the amnesty lists, would need fake names and fake identity papers both for herself and the child, but Katsura had learned about them. She had taken in a housekeeper, a local woman with a past in the Jōi herself. Apparently Takechi sent her money, and she took on a few part-time jobs in the town as well. And the child grew.

Whatever the child was, it was clear he wasn’t ordinary. On his very first visit there, Katsura could see it for himself, just like the reports had said. He was just barely a year old, said Matako (who looked not entirely comfortable with Katsura’s presence, her edges still honed sharp; yet she seemed more full, more self-contained, somehow, than he could remember). But the child looked at least two. Closer to three, really -- he was talking in full sentences, running around and climbing on things. 

In the coming years, the boy kept aging between two or three times faster than normal. At three years old, he seemed more like 8. This kind of thing could have led to big problems, but the neighbourhood was a surprisingly good one, accepting Matako’s explanation that the child had an illness that made you age faster. The local priests didn’t care about it, either. And while it proved harder to make permanent friends that way -- what did even “friends his own age” mean for this boy? -- apparently it wasn’t impossible. 

At least so Katsura gathered when he came on his twice-yearly visits and talked to Matako for a while. They were polite and reserved with each other. He said little to the boy himself, who was mostly outside or stayed in his room reading or playing video games. Apart from his speedy growth, he seemed a healthy enough child; and Katsura was afraid to inadvertently influence him, one way or another.

If it _was_ a reincarnation, if the likeness was no coincidence, then he must be intended to live peacefully now. And that probably meant people like Katsura and Gintoki shouldn’t have too much to do with him. They should maintain their distance, and keep the ache to themselves.

* * *

Katsura opened the window and looked down. Gintoki, clinging to the wall, looked up at him with a pained look. He had a pocket-knife between his teeth and now mumbled something incomprehensible.

“Give it up, Gintoki, you’re not Loronoa Zoro,” said Katsura, opening the window wide and bending down to give Gintoki a hand. 

“Your window is really inconveniently placed,” he muttered once he was inside, putting the knife back into its sheath. “It’s so inconsiderate of you. You owe me at least two parfaits for that.”

Katsura’s landlady was certainly a lady of great curiosity, but it was still unexpected to see this role reversal. Did Gintoki dislike gossip this much? Was he still afraid word would get back to Shinpachi and Kagura? Katsura was privately sure that ship had sailed long ago, but perhaps it gave Gintoki a youthful thrill to pretend their trysts were still secret. 

“I’m glad you’re finally giving into your romantic instincts,” he said. “You can follow that up by paying for my meal the next time we go out.”

Gintoki made a face. “I’m getting strawberry milk.” He left for the kitchen.

“We’re all out,” said Katsura, following him to make himself tea. 

“What a lousy host,” Gintoki replied, taking out a pudding from the fridge instead. “You’re swimming in dirty politician money these days, you should keep your fridge well-stocked for guests.”

“No, I’m not, will you stop with that?” Katsura sighed. He did have a _tiny_ bit more margin in his budgets these days, but so did Gintoki, he was fairly sure. Despite all odds the Odd Jobs Ginchan had started to get more regular work and to get better paid for it, chiefly due (in Katsura’s opinion) to the increased confidence and finesse of the younger partners. 

Minutes later, there was still pudding in Gintoki’s mouth as he grabbed a hold of Katsura’s shoulders, leaned over and gave him a long hard kiss. There were rings under his eyes. He’d had another sleepless night, no doubt. His grip was trembling slightly.

“You look tired,” he had the gall to say after breaking off the kiss, taking Katsura’s offered tissue and wiping his mouth and fingers. 

“ _You’re_ the one who looks tired, you unselfaware fool,” replied Katsura. He sat back and smoothed his kimono. 

“Ah, but I have a good excuse and you don’t,” said Gintoki, yawning and rubbing his eyes. 

Katsura narrowed his eyes. “If that is yet another complaint that ‘oh, I’m the main character and my manga ended, a secondary character couldn’t _possibly_ understand’... It’s been three years, Gintoki!”

“Oi oi oi! That doesn’t sound like me at all, don’t try to be cute. I haven’t bitched about the ending half as much as some people.”

“What is it, then? Did Leader bring home another pet beetle and had to sit with it as it grew sick and you kept her company?”

“She’s nineteen by now, you know! ...And the last time she did that it wasn’t a beetle, it was a runaway baby crocodile.”

“And that was last month. She will probably keep doing such things all her life,” said Katsura, smiling with satisfaction. He sipped his tea and went on, “Then what? Did Otose-dono have some unpleasant customers and you decided to stay up and make sure they wouldn't come back and start trouble?”

Gintoki clicked his tongue scornfully. ”Like there's anyone who'd try that these days. Nah, it was the new video game I got last week, I was on a roll and cleared so many stages, didn’t get to bed till the small hours.”

Katsura doubted that was altogether true. ”Oh, of course,” he said blandly. ”By the way, did you hear that Elizabeth is going to space for a family reunion? They've tried to plan one for over a year now but something's always come up for one of them, but it finally seems to happen this time.” 

He put the empty tea cup down and reached to draw one hand through Gintoki's thick hair; Gintoki closed his eyes for a second, hissing quietly. He grabbed Katsura's other hand and held it between his own hands.

”If you weren't so stupidly sturdy I'd worry about you sometimes, Zura” he said, his voice sounding slightly hoarse. ”I'm fine, I always land on my feet, I've got my own business to fall back on no matter what. But you're a washed-out terrorist with nothing but fluff between the ears who can't keep a job for longer than a month...”

”Nonsense,” said Katsura. ”I told you last time. It's not Zura, it's Great Teacher Katsura For Two Schools In Edo, Filling In On Tuesdays And Fridays. Instead of video games, it's lesson planning and coursework grading that takes up my evenings these days!” Or, well, it would be eventually, probably. So far he'd been winging it for all his lessons and the regular teachers hadn't delegated any grading to him.

Gintoki let go of his hand and picked his nose again. ”You mean they haven't fired you yet?” he drawled. “They've got to be insane. Who in their right mind would entrust impressionable young minds to you?”

”You should come in and help teach them kendo some time,” said Katsura, ignoring this. He was about to add a platitude about how tiring yourself out with honest work in the day led to sleeping better at night, but stopped himself. Gintoki had a faraway look in his eyes again and Katsura had the feeling that trying to distract him right now could end up silencing something important.

“You know, you never told me how that went down, back then,” the man finally said, in a quieter voice.

“Eh?” Katsura raised an eyebrow.

“With the two of you, back in the war. You and Shortstuff… you did it, right? At least once or twice?”

Katsura blinked, not expecting that. He flushed. “What… What kind of… Why would I have told you about that? It’s not like… You never asked!” 

Gintoki shrugged. 

“What about the two of you?” Katsura countered. “Didn’t you do the deed? At least once? He rather hinted as much.”

Gintoki scoffed. “He would.” But he sighed, putting his arms behind his head and looking up towards the ceiling. “There ain’t much to tell… it was when we went out to a downed enemy airship, just the two of us. Bloody hot day. He started it.”

Katsura twinned a strand of hair around a finger. “I don’t have much to tell either. It was night, and we were in the command tent. We’d been looking at maps and reading through reports. It was late, and we were both sleepy, but I thought I should hang on for a little longer. Then I noticed that he looked cold, Takasugi. So I started to look for a blanket or something to put across his shoulders, but he told me to leave it be. And he gave me this look…” he trailed off, wanting to describe it right. He would never have brought this up on his own, but now that the question had been put, it should get a good answer. 

“He looked as if he had just remembered something he ought to be doing… Only there was something entirely new in his eyes, too.” It hadn’t been like how Gintoki would look when he was in the mood, either… Or how Takasugi would look at Katsura in years to come, in those private moments. There had been no underlying sardonic gleam or deeper hatred, of self or of him, back in the war. Hidden fire, yes, that had been there already. “He moved closer and said we’d done enough for tonight, we could get warmer another way… he kissed me on the neck first.”

“Man, he sounds so much smoother with you than with me,” complained Gintoki, picking his nose and shifting his legs. 

Katsura frowned at him, but continued. “Come to think of it, I remember now, it was a little odd on my part… At first I was afraid someone might walk in and see us. It would be embarrassing to get caught. But I didn’t ask him to stop, that didn’t even occur to me. I only suggested that we’d go to one of the utility sheds instead.” 

“Hey, that’s just unfair. I used to have to convince you so many times before you could let yourself relax and have some fun for a few minutes.” Gintoki poked him in the chest accusingly.

Katsura swatted Gintoki’s finger away and huffed. “We _were_ in the midst of war, Gintoki. Besides, sometimes I took the initiative.” Sometimes Gintoki had been the one who wasn’t in the mood, either, rebuffing an offered hug after a bad defeat. But still… In a sense, they had been able to take each other’s embraces for granted. Back in those days, and then much later again, after Benizakura. 

But he doubted Gintoki could fully understand. Those two had always been so intense towards one another, laser-focused, mirror images; brothers in soul and spirit entwined by the red string of fate. Perhaps it had been pathetic of Katsura to react the way he did. But he hadn’t been used to being that much in focus for Takasugi’s gaze, to feel that fiery look on him and nobody else. The weight of it, as if being with Katsura right then could matter that much… No, he simply couldn’t have let that moment slip away. 

He couldn’t say that, of course. Not now. It was a childish sentiment, and there was too much emptiness inside them both.


	5. Follow The Brook Back Up To The Mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set entirely post-canon.

The boy’s full name is Shinsaku Hikawa, but he's rarely called that. Aunt Matako always calls him Shin-chan except on the rare occasions when she has to introduce him to some important grown-up. Then she can get this odd look on her face almost like she's forgotten what his full name sounds like (but isn't she the one who picked it?). The shorter form, Shin-chan, feels more like his real name. If he has a real name.

He knows the story of where he came from very well: Aunt Matako has told it to him many times like a bedtime story, telling him that she was lost and alone, drifting from town to town not knowing what to do with her life. Then in one small village she heard a strange cry from inside the hollow of a tree. She looked into that hollow and found a tiny baby there. When she asked the village elders, they said that nobody knew where the child came from, that the gods must have meant for Aunt Matako to raise the child. Aunt Matako had listened, had taken the baby, had found a place to stay in a new town, and here they were now. 

Eventually, by the time that he was almost three (and as big as other children who were eight or nine), he found out that Aunt Matako had told the town's officials that he was the son of Matako's dead sister, who had died from an illness, and that his father had died in an accident months before he was born. When he asked what that was about, Aunt Matako replied that officials just wouldn't believe in babies being found in trees, and Uncle Takechi, on a visit right then, backed her up. But in reality, she claims, she’s never had a sister. Shin-chan wonders what to believe. 

It's only when he's a bit older that he will realize that he’s been very lucky in how the people in that small town have reacted to him growing up so quickly. Matako told officials that he has an unusual illness, with documents to prove it (and he supposes it’s not wrong, even if he doesn’t _feel_ sick). He has a dispensation from attending regular school as long as he can pass special exams twice a year, though he does go to calligraphy lessons and kendo lessons in town. The school people are understanding, and so are the priests in town. Takechi seems to get well on with the priests, and while they insist on Shin-chan going to shrines now and then and taking part in various annoying ceremonies, Aunt Matako says it's because they want to give him good luck. At least the priests don’t act like they think he’s cursed. 

As he grows up, there are kids who stare at him and won't go close, and some call him ”Princess Kaguya” and laugh (he could bear being called ”Bamboo Shoot”, but a princess is just too much, so those kids he has to fight). Most kids he knows aren’t like that, they’re more relaxed -- still, it’s not easy to keep your friends when you outgrow all your playmates. He's lucky, again, that there's a neighbourhood family of four boys, the youngest born two years earlier than him, and all fairly ready to play and chill about him growing older. By the time he's three his regular playmate is the second youngest son in that family, having outgrown the two younger brothers but often having to babysit them. 

Grown-ups come by on visits at times. Uncle Takechi comes by every few weeks. He also sends money they need – Shin-chan knows they need it because sometimes Aunt Matako looks worried and grumbles under her breath when that money is later to arrive than usual. She probably doesn't earn much money at her part-time job at the fish-cleaning place in town. And yet they have a housekeeper – or a babysitter for him, he's not sure what to call Asuna. If she were a pain he would object that he's big enough and can stay alone the whole time at home while Aunt Matako is working, instead of just a few hours now and then. But he likes Asuna, and Auntie trusts her. 

Asuna stays with him overnight now and then, not very often, when Aunt Matako packs her bag, hugs him close and then leaves for several days. She’s restless beforehand and much calmer when she comes back. She says she’s just done a bit of extra work. He’s never allowed to look into her bag when she goes away those times.

The serious-looking man with the long hair comes rarely, only twice a year – right after New Year's and on Golden Week. Katsura is his name. He only really speaks to Aunt Matako while the boy is out playing or in his room, and he never stays for long, but he leaves a few gifts like crayons and notebooks and souvenir food as he leaves, and weird mascot figurines. He might also be sending money to Aunt Matako, but Shin-chan isn't sure about that. 

Much more often a wild young woman with red hair and Chinese clothes comes by to challenge Aunt Matako to a fight. They yell and insult each other and charge one another wildly outside the house. Usually Uncle Takechi is the only one the boy sees Matako beating up, when he's being too stupid, but this girl is an exception. There's a man in glasses that comes along too and tries to keep the woman in check, fails and apologies and leaves them some money to pay for all the food his friend has just scarfed down after the fight. When they leave the fridge is all empty. Aunt Matako acts annoyed by all this, but she always seems to be in a good mood afterwards. Shin-chan has to ask Uncle Takechi for their names, because Auntie only calls them “you two-!” when they're there, and “those idiots” after they've left. 

Every now and then men in rough clothes, scarred bodies and tough faces who look like they've seen a lot of trouble come by, and Aunt Matako always serves them tea. They talk a while in low voices, they'll try to give her a little bit of money (although they usually look poor themselves) and she tries to refuse and to give something to them instead. Sometimes she does accept the money reluctantly, though. The men leave and never come back. They often give the boy strange glances, but when they leave they look more peaceful than when they come. 

Aunt Matako is often quiet a good while afterwards. But maybe that's not bad. Shin-chan doesn't know. 

He also doesn’t know what to make of Tatsuma Sakamoto at all. A loud man who doesn’t come around all that often either, full of silly laughter and sudden motion sickness and dumb jokes and gifts that can be either really neat or really weird; it could be the latest cool videogame or it could be some kind of toy that only Amanto with four arms can play correctly. He seems like an idiot, he laughs too much, and he's just so... so _weird_. And he always dashes off again just as quickly as he came, just when you were trying to come up with good questions to ask him. Shin-chan is dubious of the man's claims to be the head of a space-faring merchant fleet, but Aunt Matako says it's the truth when he asks her, with a regretful sigh as if she would rather wish it weren’t.

Finally there's two people who never knock on the door, never speak to Auntie, and maybe they have nothing to do with him at all and show up in his neighbourhood at times for other reasons. But he doesn't think so. The first one is a tall lady with long dark hair carrying a very long sword, and looking like she wouldn’t hesitate to use it. She makes the boy feel that she's full of secrets, but if you say the wrong thing she will never talk to you. Several times he's stood and watched her from a distance, working up the courage to approach her and start to ask her important questions, but before he could even take the first step, she had vanished again. 

And there's the man with white hair. 

The boy only sees him clearly a few times, always at a distance. He's hard to make out from the surrounding shadows, and vanishes again really quickly. The boy doesn't think the woman with the long sword minds if he sees her, at least not briefly. She just doesn’t want to be spoken to, it seems. But he gets the feeling that the man in white hair doesn't want to even be seen.

* * *

Once, he was careless. He'd been exploring the overgrown area to the east where there are abandoned houses and a lot of earthquake damage. He'd made a mistake as he balanced on the top of a high stone wall, when he had reached a part that had partially crumbled where there was a lot of moss on top of old rubble. He lost his footing and fell down on the other side of the wall, twisting his ankle when he landed.

Now he was in a very overgrown enclosure with the ruins of a house in the middle. High stone walls surrounded it on all sides, except for one part which had a high iron fence instead, and a gate closed with a huge lock. He did try to climb up the wall again, but with his hurt ankle it was impossible to gain footing. Shin-chan wasn't totally unfamiliar with this place, he'd actually come here once before to explore it, but then he'd had a friend with him.They’d brought a rope and a ladder, and it hadn't been close to sunset like now. 

The trees were high, the bushes were thorny, the undergrowth was everywhere and blocked out the last rays of the setting sun. The boy didn't think of himself as easily frightened, but he felt colder than usual right then, swallowing and wondering if he should risk the blow to his pride and start to yell for help, or suck it up and stoically spend the night here. He was also uneasily aware that even if he did start to yell, nobody might be close enough to hear him. 

He spun around as he heard rustling behind the closest wall, the sounds of climbing. Then suddenly a head full of unruly white hair appeared above it. The boy stared. It was that guy, there was no question about it. He'd never been this close before.

The man stared down at him for a long moment.

He opened his mouth, closed it, took another look at the boy, and a few seconds later the man was standing on top of the wall in his usual traveller's clothes. Then he crouched down and held out his arm towards the boy, and when he saw it wouldn't reach him, he held out his wooden sword, grip first. “Can you grab that? Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice a little hoarse.

Then, after Shin-chan had explained about his ankle, the man directed him to how he should stand, where he should put his balance, and then somehow the man didn't topple over at all as the boy grabbed the wooden sword tightly. Instead he actually managed to lift him up higher, with his full weight dangling from that sword, until he'd swung him in an arc and put him right on the wall again, where they were sitting face to face for a few seconds. 

The man sighed, rubbing his head. “So dumb. What an idiot, falling like that. You've got some luck I was around to see you.” 

And then the next moment he'd jumped down on this side of the wall, where the ground was closer. He reached up, grabbed Shin-chan and put him on the ground. “Just go home,” he muttered, and the next moment he was gone.

* * *

In his strange, sped-up childhood, most of the time things weren’t bad, just intense and often mysterious. He was a weird boy, he knew, but he had people he trusted who cared about him. He had good playmates, but didn’t make any extremely close friends -- though perhaps he had no strong need for such, either. As he would say much later, his second childhood was both less and more lonely than his first. And certainly more peaceful.

But there were also other times -- times when he felt he could taste and smell something much larger and stronger, but also darker and sadder, than his real life. That would make his real life feel less real by comparison. 

One of the ways that happened was a dream that would keep coming back. It wasn’t like the regular nightmares when he dreamt about zombies and monsters and witches and being stuck while something unspeakable was hunting him. It wasn’t as directly scary as those. But it felt _heavy_. And it lingered inside his chest even after he’d woken up, even in the morning, much more than the nightmares did.

He was walking up a hill. The hill was steep and he was very tired and hurt, with blood dripping down from a wound somewhere (the dream varied in where the wound was, where the pain came from: his leg, his side, his chest, his shoulder...). In his arms was a big, heavy brick he couldn’t put down. He had to get to the top of the hill carrying the brick, but each step seemed to take forever. His body was aching, and he thought he must have been walking there for years, now. 

Blood dripped down and the sun shone, and far away birds were calling. He was himself and also not. He kept walking, the weight pressing him down, but he always woke up before reaching the top.

* * *

In waking hours, he would sometimes feel like he was being watched. For a long time he hated that feeling. It wasn’t like when the mysterious Long Sword Lady or the White-Haired Man came around: this sensation went deeper, and it would last even if he ran fast, even after he came home. Each time it would lessen gradually and then go away after an hour or so, but he could never force it away himself.

* * *

* * *

The boy grew older, and smarter. He learned about the recent history of his country, and when he wasn’t satisfied with what the books said, he started to ask and ask and put more and more questions about it to Aunt Matako and Uncle Takechi and Asuna. He snooped around and found hidden boxes in the house, with photos of people he didn’t know, of Auntie when she was younger. He found two different sets of passports with photos of Auntie, of himself when he was a baby, but now they had other names entirely. Were those papers fake, or was it the documents he knew that were fake? Or maybe -- both?

He found notes and letters that were hard to understand when he didn’t know where they came from, but still held exciting clues: _Take care of the new shipment of.... Meet up with F. in the harbour tomorrow... Rakuyo, City X, 4th temple you pass when climbing uphill to the north… Tell Bansai that… (the text was smudged). The White Yaksha was last seen north of the village of Y…_ You could probably make up a whole video game just using clues like that. And one word that came back several times: the Kiheitai.

And he took all of this knowledge together and got better and better at eavesdropping on the adults and occasionally asking a few carefully selected questions -- and by the time he had lived for nearly four and a half years, and was as big as normal children were at twelve or thirteen, he had become more and more aware of the _other one_. 

The man they were all thinking about. Not just Auntie and Uncle Takechi, not just the men with harsh faces who would only come once. But also serious Katsura and goofy Sakamoto and the Tall Sword Lady and the White-Haired Man and maybe also the brute girl Kagura and meek guy Shinpachi Shimura, although with those last two he wasn’t as sure. But the other ones, yes. They all had that _other one_ in mind. He knew it. 

It made him shiver to think about, but not with fear exactly, rather with a kind of vertigo: he felt as if there were dark tendrils reaching out to him from a place of deep power, and if he didn’t step back and keep himself anchored down to everyday life he would get sucked up into that darkness, swallowed whole. 

Yet somehow it didn’t terrify him.

But he knew this: he wanted it to be on his own terms. Something he chose for himself. Even if it should prove to hurt. He hadn’t made up his mind yet, but he’d rather choose to step into the reach of that darkness than run away and build a fortress against it forever. Perhaps he wanted to grow his own tendrils.

Around this time he started to keep a diary. If he did end up swallowed by the darkness, he wanted there to be something that was left of him as he was now.

* * *

* * *

* * *

“Zura, things are happening.”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura. Things are always happening, Sakamoto.”

Sakamoto inches his chair closer, though the noise in this bar isn’t as loud now as it was a few minutes ago. Katsura has tried to make them go to a soba restaurant for once, but Sakamoto has an uncanny ability to make them wind up in the type of place he likes the most, proving much stronger than Gintoki in that regard. To be fair, Gintoki can’t really match either of Sakamoto’s two special moves, namely Offering To Pay The Tab and Leavin’ Earth Again In A Day Or Two (And Who Knows When We’ll See Each Other Next, Ahahahaha). And somehow Katsura doesn’t mind it all that much. He doesn’t even mind helping Sakamoto throw up on the street as usually happens after they’ve gone drinking like this. 

But right now the Loud Fellow is still only on his second glass. “Yeah, that’s well an’ true,” he says, nodding, “but some of those things that are happening right now are the kind that never did before. And they are just too freaking cute…” He reaches inside his coat and brings out a stack of photos, with some holograms mixed in. Katsura peers at them, angling his head to see better.

“See?” Sakamoto continues. “Look how big Ruby’s gotten! Ain’t she just the cutest li’l lady in the galaxy?” Beaming even more than usual, the man waves one of the photos right in front of Katsura’s nose. “Look at this one, she’s holding her ma’s hand! An’ here she’s sailing a toy boat down the brook!”

“She is indeed fairly cute,” concedes Katsura about the young girl in the photos, looking around five or six years old. “Is she attacking a huge wild animal in that last photo?”

“She is, she is.” Sakamoto, looking even fonder now. “That’s a li’l Yato girl for ya. But I’m sure the dumb beast had it comin’, ahahahaha!” 

“Really, Sakamoto,” mumbles Katsura, sipping at the glass of wine that Sakamoto poured up for him. “It’s a little late for you to come waving around your own Final Fantasy delusion at this point.”

“Ahahaha, whaddya mean, Zurakichi? Jus’ ‘cause folks are so quick to jump to conclusions--! All right, all right, I know what you’re gonna say. She does look like she could be Mutsu’s daughter, right?”

“I didn’t say that,” Katsura comments prudently. “And she certainly doesn’t look like she has any of your stupidity in her. And it’s not Zurakichi, it’s Katsura.”

“True, the girl’s pureblooded Yato. But we only found out ‘bout her this past spring. Came as a complete surprise to Mutsu to find that she has a first cousin that survived the pirate wars all along and was smart enough to fake her own death and run away with her secret sweetheart! Even better, both of them were fed up with bein’ mercenaries or pirates. Wanted somethin’ new for their kid. So they set up on this one remote planet that hasn’t been too exploited, ‘cause it’s ultra volcanic an’ the giant carnivorous beasts there are just too much for most ta deal with. But y’know, that’s one way to handle that famous Yato bloodthirst - they just go out huntin’ huge beasts when they need an outlet! Plus, they can also earn money that way, sellin’ game trophies to space merchants.”

“So all in all, you have no true relation to this girl,” says Katsura, “and Mutsu-san is only her first cousin once removed.”

“Ah, but but!! She’s become her honorary aunt now! An’ maybe her only livin’ relative ‘cept for her folks, even... So we decided to give both her an’ her parents shares in the Kaientai. Now they have a steady income apart from just huntin’! One day in the future that girl might hop aboard on our fleet an’ go see the galaxy! Become a great merchant! Don’t ya think that means I qualify as an honorary uncle?”

“It seems she could use a few more relatives, so I guess even you might do,” admits Katsura, holding out his glass so Sakamoto can fill it up, then returning the favour. There’s a lot of life in Tatsuma’s voice and face as he talks about this child, making Katsura wonder if the merchant hasn’t wished for children of his own one day, though he can’t recall him ever mentioning it. Possibly at some point back in the war… But if so, the stars always pulled on him that much more. 

“Mutsu’s pretty darn happy ‘bout it, you know, Zura,” says Sakamoto, head resting sloppily in his palm, slouching with his elbow on the table. 

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura.”

“See, she’s told me in the past before, more than once, that she can’t imagine having kids, but… it’s bad for the Yato, getting fewer and fewer. That’s been naggin’ at her. So to find these people, and seein’ they’re tryin’ to find a new way forward, too, that they ain’t raisin’ their daughter into crime an’ bloodshed… That’s been great for her, I’m tellin’ ya. She seems that much calmer and happier now.” Sakamoto’s voice drops lower, and sounds a shade warmer as he adds, “I feel that now, I can picture us keep travellin’ in space for years to come. Wasn’t too sure ‘bout that, just a year ago…”

 _So if things have changed for you, it’s really just in a way that can enable you to go on_ without _changing?_ Katsura thinks, nearly says out loud, but then doesn’t. He swallows it down. Sakamoto getting things to change around him so he doesn’t need to change himself is just standard procedure, and Katsura, in truth, prefers it that way. 

“‘Uncle Tatsuma’ sure has a nice ring to it, huh?” says Sakamoto, his voice just a tad maudlin. 

“You’ve had too much to drink,” Katsura consequently tells him.

“Ahahaha, I’m fine! I wasn’t just goin’ ta tell ya about our little Ruby-chan! D’you know who never got to callin’ me Uncle Tatsuma? S’pose I didn’t show up often enough for the sprout for that to happen…” sighs Sakamoto.

Katsura tenses up, hand a little unsteady as he takes another drink. “The sprout” is what Sakamoto calls young Shinsaku Hikawa.

“Did you intend to come on visits more often, over there?” he replies, drawing himself up as he puts his cup down. “Or did you just not foresee him growing up so quickly?” Understandable, of course, but it had been clear from the first year that the child grew abnormally fast.

Sakamoto chuckles to himself, rather than letting out his usual laugh. Then he looks out into the air, a distant look on his face. “I reckon I was just hopin’ for good radio waves,” he says nonsensically; then, abruptly, “That sprout’s been writin’ ta me, y’ know. Startin’ ta ask some real questions.”

Katsura gave him a quiet look, then stood up, went to get water, and poured it up for Sakamoto. “Take some water,” he urged. “I don’t want you to throw up right now.”

“Hey hey hey, I’m not that bad!” But Sakamoto does obligingly take a mouthful of water, even if he makes a face. “Zura,” he says again. “I’m leavin’ the planet again the day after tomorrow, I don’t want to talk about this the whole rest of my time.”

Katsura knocks him on the head. “But you do want to talk about it.”

“Stop that!” whines Sakamoto. “I do, I do, I doooo… but… Zura, he’s been askin’ questions, and I think he’s turnin’ ta me exactly _because_ I’m all but a stranger to him. But he’s still not askin’ the real BIG questions, y’know? I reckon that means... I reckon that means he’s holdin’ back, and when a kid that age… well not lit’rally that age but the age he kinda is right now but not on paper... anyway… when kids like that are goin’ round with thoughts too big for their heads that they can’t talk about fully, means it’s all over but the shouting. I mean. He could do it.”

“What? I’m not following you.”

Sakamoto sighs theatrically. His breath is boozy. “I meeean. It could be done, y’know? Ain’t no end to all the stuff Altana can do…”

“It’s way too plot convenient that way,” Katsura agrees, starting to guess what Sakamoto means. A shiver comes over him. He buries his hands into his sleeves, aware they’re not quite steady.

Sakamoto nods. “An’ if he finds a Dragon Vein, or some other type of boost… Might be he’ll find himself a way ta remember.”

“But…” Katsura swallows again, but rallies, trying to force himself into calm. “...First of all, it might not even _be_ him. We all just assume so, but… it’s not certain.”

“Right, right, right,” says Sakamoto, ordering a third bottle of booze.

“Second of all… even if he is, reincarnations aren’t supposed to remember their past lives, no matter what extraordinary substances they might come in contact with.”

Sakamoto gives him a look over his sunglasses; for once, he’s not smiling. He fills up his own glass and then Katsura’s cup, and says nothing.

Katsura shifts position, suddenly aware that the din of the bar has sunk down to just a background murmur. He sips on the alcohol, feeling the burn in his throat and stomach. His head is spinning. But he lowers his voice, and continues in a whisper, “Third of all… Third of all, even if…” Cold now, a cold feeling despite the warmth of the drink. “Even! If! Memory isn’t the same as personality. Even if he remembers, he might not actually… he might not actually become like he was. It might just become a horrible burden to him. Memories like that.” His tongue starts to trip on his words; he gestures inarticulately. Sakamoto is smiling his goofy smile again, the serious look gone. Katsura wants to explain to him much more, and he also wants to take back the words he’s already said; he wants to cling to him tightly and to push him away, all the way back up to space. 

He wants to put his head down on the bar counter and not raise it for ages and ages. Like Gintoki does, sometimes. He wants to feel the waves of inebriation pass over him, wants the thoughts to slow down and murmur instead of their incessant buzzing. 

They don’t, of course: the thoughts are as busy as ever, it’s just the ordering of them that gets harder in his drunk state. He reaches out and pats Sakamoto on the head without really knowing why. That silly hair of his just looks like it needs petting. Sakamoto is starting to look a little green in the face, though.

“He’s too much of a brat, he wouldn’t let that happen,” mumbles Sakamoto, words slurred, and Katsura doesn’t quite follow. Let what happen? Be burdened by memories? Regaining memories in the first place? 

He reaches over and fishes out Sakamoto’s wallet to pay their bill, then gets up and drags him into the bar’s bathroom where he helps him throw up. A breeze of night air is coming in from a window high up near the ceiling, easing the stench a little. Cold and buried in his chest, he doesn’t put his last line of argument into words, but they echo inside him.

_Fourth of all…  
Fourth of all, even if he does become his old self again… that doesn’t mean he will want to have anything to do with us. _

They had failed him, after all. Failed to keep him in the light. Failed to follow him into the darkness.

He trembles. In his mind’s eye that figure is always turned away. It hurts to try to hope, when you know you shouldn’t.

* * *

* * *

* * *

Matako called him on a still, silent evening right around when he would normally have dinner. Hours ago, he’d come home from a job that took half as long as expected and he’d sat himself down at his desk. The air was thick and still around him, he put his feet up and just remained there. He couldn’t have said why he couldn’t make himself get up and move. Quiet as a stone statue, as if the brooding, sombre air mustn’t be disturbed, even his thoughts had slowed down and moved like shambling zombies in his head.

For a while his sluggish mind couldn’t even remember why Shinpachi and Kagura were nowhere to be seen and hadn’t even called to tell why. It was nothing alarming, that he was sure, they’d told him this morning they’d go somewhere, right? And they’d taken Sadaharu with them. Slowly it came back, something about a geek event in town where Shinpachi intended to look for Otsû merchandise and Kagura had decided to join him to look for merch of her own bizarre favourites. Right. 

In that quietude into which the din of the city didn’t seem to penetrate, the telephone rang suddenly, shrilly, making him start and nearly topple over in his chair, regaining his balance only at the last second.

“Yeah?”

“White Yaksha.”

He sat up straight, recognizing the voice after a few seconds’ reflection. Goddammit, why did she still have to call him that? Well, it was true they didn’t really...well, didn’t really talk at all, normally, but it was still a dumb thing to stick to after all these years.

“It’s Gin-san, you know that, lady.” His voice sounded hoarse. “Hey. Been a while.”

“You… You know what this is about, don’t you?” Her voice was low, but seemed incredibly clear.

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Swallowed. Dusty thought, dusty words. “I -- I don’t know.” One moment, to collect himself. Then, softer, “I’m not sure.”

“Ah.” A pause; she seemed to collect herself, too. And just when enough seconds had passed that he was gearing up to make a dumb remark about the dramaticness, she said, “Well. He’s vanished.”

“Va...nished?”

“Gone from the house this morning.”

He struggled to keep up. “What… Where did he… How big is he now?”

“Who even knows?” she said, a touch of bitterness in her voice; a touch of sadness. “Two weeks ago, I would say he looked 13, 14. Now…” Another pause, then, “Yesterday, I thought: he looks almost as old as I was when my father died at the end of the war. As old as you all were when you went out and fought in it.”

He wondered what she had learned about their past. She seemed more informed than he had thought. It wasn’t allowed to just get that kind of info by simply reading the manga, was it?

“Do you think he left town? Came here? Is that why you called me?” he asked, expecting her to say yes, that she wanted him to look for him, to bring back the boy who she had raised for years now, or to bring back the man she had followed unreservedly in the past, and had been in love with. Either one of those. Surely that was why she had called him.

“He can’t be found anywhere in town,” said Matako Kijima. “But I called because I wanted to warn you, White Yaksha.” Then silence again, as if her voice was swallowed up by darkness.

“Why do you think I need to be warned?” he asked, lowering his own voice now, leaning forward over the desk.

But she didn’t answer the question. Instead, she said, “You should go talk to Imai. I think he went and saw her, two weeks ago. When she came to this region for her work.”

He opened his mouth intending to ask her why she wasn’t calling Nobume directly, then, but again she spoke before he could, and this time her words were fast, hurried. “Because I can trust you to look out for him.” Then, a click. She’d hung up. 

He put the handset down on his ancient black telephone that he still stubbornly refused to replace. A few more long, dense seconds passed, as he looked down at his scarred hands, at the grainy surface of his office desk.

Then he tsk’d to himself as he finally stood up and dusted his hands. “So does the bullet chick think I keep some kind of tab on what doughnut girl is doing? Maaan, some people,” he grumbled out loud into the air. He was suddenly much more aware of the street sounds and the traffic din of the big city, now that time seemed to be moving again. Two minutes later he was standing in the street outside his house and turned to walk towards the city centre -- walk and not drive, since Shinpachi had borrowed his moped earlier. But he wasn’t aiming for the police headquarters or any other government buildings. There was a much different venue he would try first.

* * *

He found Nobume in the second bowling hall he went to. She’d picked up this interest last year and hadn’t abandoned it yet, even though she found it hard to get people to compete with her after many spectacular wins or outrageous losses. When she was out with Kagura and Otae and the others, she would come up with new challenging ways to throw the ball and/or take down the pins, whether blatantly against the rules or not: Gintoki had nothing against that kind of thing in principle, but he knew better than to compete with that rowdy gang when they were all out together. He had to look out for the safety of his own balls, thank you very much. 

Tonight, however, Nobume was bowling alone, launching ball after ball in a straight line with little stopping. She was out of uniform. wearing a simple cotton kimono with a checkered pattern in grey, light violet and white, with a fringed shawl in white and light blue on top. Gintoki walked up to her, stood there quietly for a moment or two; she didn’t look up or otherwise acknowledge his presence, so eventually he leaned over to snatch away her bowling ball as it came rolling back, letting it spin on his index finger. 

Then her gaze did sweep over him from top to toe. She nodded, a tiny bit. “Want to compete?” she asked, the tip of her sword suddenly pressing against the underside of his chin.

“Hey! Make up your mind if you want a swordsman duel or a crazy bowling competition!” he protested, backing and tossing the ball away behind him. Some random patron was swearing in the background, perhaps from getting hit by the ball. “And no, I don’t,” he added. “Can we go get a bite to eat? There’s a place across the street that has doughnuts.” Come to think of it, that’s probably why she was here and not in that other bowling hall that was closer to her office.

She sheathed her sword and kicked up her bowling ball, which Random Patron had just rolled in her direction, putting it into her bag. “I’m not paying for your food, too,” was all she said as she switched shoes and left the building, Gintoki trailing after her. 

He had some money on him from this day’s job and bought himself a strawberry milkshake and a café au lait. As he waited for her to finish her order by the counter, he checked his mobile phone (cheap, beat-up, second-hand) just in case, though he didn’t get texts very often since people knew he tended to forget, lose, or destroy his mobiles. No messages. Shinpachi and Kagura might chew him out later for being too secretive, but stuff like this wasn’t something you could tell people over text, and he wanted to get a little more of a feel for the situation before he called them on the telephone. 

“Bullet chick said I should talk to you,” he opened once she came back to the table with her haul and a cup of black coffee. “Heard the boy has run away and you might know something about that.”

“He has?” she asked, giving him a sharp look. “Since when?”

“This morning, and she thinks he might have left town.” He added more sugar to his coffee and stirred it slowly, giving her a long look. 

She bit into her first doughnut thoughtfully. 

“Two weeks ago there was a ceremony in another town in that prefecture, opening a new, up-to-date police headquarters staffed with graduates from Edo’s new police school,” she said, wiping crumbs off her face. “After it was over he shoved his way through the crowd and said he had to speak with me. He’d seen my photo in the newspaper and realized who I am.”

“Bound to happen eventually,” commented Gintoki. “You just weren’t sneaky enough, skulking around like that.” 

“You’re one to talk. Anyway, I could have had him thrown out and pretended I had no idea who he was, but that didn’t seem fair.” She shrugged. “So I went to talk to him at an old, abandoned temple in the middle of the forest at midnight.”

“That’s too much! That’s absurdly dramatic! You’re indulging that mini-edgelord!”

“There was also a full moon, but there were clouds in the sky, so I carried a traditional lantern with me as well,” she continued.

“Oh wait, sorry, I was wrong all along. You’re the edgelord here. Reliving your teenage years already.”  
Unperturbed, Nobume continued her account.

> He had gone through another growth spurt. The last time Nobume had seen him before this, back in his hometown, he had been on the verge of adolescence, and now he was clearly in the middle of it. (“Please tell me he has pimples now,” commented Gintoki.) His hair was long and unkempt, hanging over his eyes, but straight and shiny. (“Eugh.”) He was wearing Western clothes this time around, a black polo-collared sweater and skinny black jeans. The effect, she felt, was that of a tryhard fan of rock singers, who has an outfit in mind but neither the budget nor the height to complete the look. (“Now that’s harsh. Hey, since when did you turn into a fashion guru, anyway?”) He’d been shining an electric torch of his own, but he shut it off when Nobume arrived with the lantern. Then the moon came out of the clouds, and she blew out the lantern as unnecessary. 
> 
> “Good evening, Shinsaku-kun,” said Nobume, since there was no use pretending she didn’t know who he was.
> 
> “Good evening, Imai-san,” he replied. “I was surprised to find out you’re the Edo Chief of Police. You’ve kept an eye on me a lot, haven’t you?”
> 
> She shrugged. “Only when I really did have time over. I never neglected my duties over it.”
> 
> He frowned, drew himself up and crossed his arms over his chest. “Was it because you didn’t want me to come to harm? Or because you were worried I might become a danger to other people?” Nobume blinked; she hadn’t expected him to guess at the second part. 
> 
> “I’ve been reading up on things,” the boy went on. “They’re all trying to shield me… But you don’t have a right to do that. You never even talked to me before.”
> 
> She inclined her head slightly. “You may be right.” 
> 
> “I -- so.” He stopped, then took a deep breath. “Shinsuke. Takasugi. That old terrorist. That’s the one -- that’s the one they all see when they look at me? Isn’t it? It’s the only one that really fits. And they think I’m him. That I will turn into him. Isn’t that it?”
> 
> “Ah.” She was silent for a long moment, then said, “It’s true that there’s a belief that you may be his reincarnation. Because as a baby, you were found in mysterious circumstances, and because you look a lot like him. But it’s not certain. It could just be coincidence.”
> 
> “What about the fact that I grow up so quickly?”
> 
> “Well, that’s not something he himself was known for doing, but…” She hesitated, then said, carefully, “You would know about Altana, of course.”
> 
> “Of course,” he said impatiently. “That’s what the whole last war was about. Is it true it really used to be a secret here on Earth even though it was so famous and important out in space, for the Amanto?”
> 
> “Well, the Amanto didn’t really want the Earthlings to realize the value of Altana as a resource. But the knowledge did trickle out over time to some of us, even before the war started.” She paused again. Then, slowly, “There was… There was a man that Shinsuke Takasugi knew very well. He alone had the ability to take in and absorb Altana directly and without side-effects. He could heal very quickly, and once, after he was ‘killed’ in a sense, he was reborn again and grew very quickly, too. He went from being a baby to looking about six years old within a few months. This is hearsay, but it’s from a good source. (“Well, thank you for that.”) And then… It’s complicated, but before he died, Takasugi also got some Altana into his body, even if he couldn’t use it to anywhere near the same extent. But because that happened… it’s one more reason to think the two of you could be connected.”

“Huh,” commented Gintoki. “He’s still so damn young, you know. You had no qualms telling him all of that?”

Nobume finished her fourth doughnut and drank more of her coffee. “If I was barely going to tell him a thing, I wouldn’t have agreed to come to that meeting in the first place. Besides, it seemed to me he’s grown up with enough evasions.”

>   
>  “So what will happen in my future?” said the boy testily, hands in pockets. He looked at her steadily, but his feet and shoulders were shifting restlessly, like a nervous purebred horse. “Am I going to die of old age before I turn 25?”
> 
> Nobume raised an eyebrow at him. “You certainly don’t back away from the unpleasant scenarios.” She looked up at the moon, stepping out from the fuzzy shade into the moonlight. “In truth, nobody actually knows what will happen. What I do know is that there are people here on Earth and people in space with knowledge of Altana and other things that could perhaps prove useful. There’s nothing that says you would have to blithely accept a fate like that.” 
> 
> The boy huffed and didn’t reply for a while, looking away and crossing his arms over his chest. He muttered, “That’s easy to say, but _I’m_ the one who’ll decide…” then trailed off, sitting down at the steps of the temple, and drawing a hand through his hair. Nobume remained standing. 
> 
> Eventually, the boy asked, his voice sounding small, young and tired, “D’you know if it’s true, then? What Aunt Matako says… that she found me as a baby inside a hollow tree? It just sounds like a fairytale.”
> 
> “I wasn’t there,” she said, shrugging, “but I have no particular reason to doubt it. That tree must have been one of the dragon holes.”
> 
> He raised his head, staring at her again, eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “Dragon holes?”
> 
> “That’s to do with Altana as well,” she replied, “and the dragon veins where it flows. But this is all I can tell you, Shinsaku-kun. By all means, find out more if you wish -- however, I must warn you to think closely about what you actually wish to achieve before you act on your knowledge.” She walked over to her lantern, struck a light, and lit it once more. She added, “Especially since you could get hurt for very mundane reasons. That man who was maybe your preincarnation was a great fighter. But you’re a child of peace. You don’t even own a sword, do you?”
> 
> He shook his head. “I’m the best one at kendo practice in my age group,” he said, “but I know it’s nothing compared to those who fight with real swords to survive.” He sounded a bit sulky despite this admission.
> 
> She nodded. “You’re a smart kid.” Then she undid the sheath of the sword she’d been carrying into the forest and put it down on the ground, at the bottom of the temple steps. “Here. My regular sword is too long, it takes too much time to get used to, so I took another one with me tonight. You can have it.”
> 
> He started, rising to his feet. “What… You… How…” he spluttered, staring wildly down at the sword, up at her, back and forth.
> 
> She had started to walk away from there, but now she stopped and looked back at him with a small smile. “There was a bond of sorts between me and that other man, though I’m still not sure if he ever learnt about it. I never managed to find a way to talk to him about that while he was alive. So, for that reason…” And she left the temple and walked away into the forest.

Gintoki’s spoon clattered to the table. He sat staring at Nobume, mouth half open, milkshake forgotten.

“You dumped all that stuff on a sheltered adolescent kid and gave him a fucking sword to top it off? Bloody hell, girl! Have you gone absolutely crazy? Is it the stress of the office? Did you get kidnapped by some weird-ass Amanto and had your brain exchanged for a doughnut at some point??”

Nobume sipped from her cup of coffee. “He may not be that experienced, but he does have some training. I didn’t want him to meet any dangers that could be out there while weaponless.”

“A damn sprout like that? He’s as likely or not to cut his head off by accident with a real sword! And that’s not even counting mental and emotional instability into the bargain! Dammit, woman, you’re supposed to be the chief of police in this country? You may just have created the middle-school serial killer par excellence!!”

She sighed, reaching out for a napkin to wipe her mouth. “You should give him more credit. You’ve only ever watched him from a distance. If you’d talked to him before this…”

“Don’t give me that. You’re the one making a damn stupid sentimental gesture just because _you’re_ just as cowardly. You couldn’t talk to him either, this whole time.” He leaned back and finished his milkshake angrily, spitefully. “Of all the bone-headed things to do…”

She drew herself up and reached for her purse and sword, having finished her sixth and final doughnut. “Well, there you have it, at any rate. I will help look for him, of course. I have yours and Kagura-chan’s mobile phone number in case I find him or a solid lead before you.” She got up and swept her shawl around her. “I’m sure we both have some ideas of the kind of places he could have gone. But… personally, I simply feel more at ease knowing that he has a way to protect himself now.”

“Because you could tell he would soon run away from home, right?” muttered Gintoki, glowering at her.

“In this kind of situation, it seems inevitable at some point,” she said. “If it were me… It’s possible I would have left much earlier.” 

She seemed lost in thought for a moment. Maybe she found it hard to truly imagine a version of herself that had grown up safe and loved since early childhood, and what that version would have done if put into the strange circumstances that the boy was in. Then she simply nodded to him, and left. Having nothing left to say, it seemed.

Gintoki’s leg twitched for a moment, but instead of getting up right away, he decided to stay put a few minutes and think.

_It’s happening._

He looked down at his hands, kept them held out flat on the table. Forcing them to keep steady.

 _No matter how you look at it, it’s clearly happening._ Or -- trying to happen, anyway. 

_Shōyō, is this wrong?_ he asked silently. _Should we have done more to keep him from his past? But he’s a free individual, his own person…_ Shōyō would not have approved of them trying to keep Shinsaku Hikawa clouded in ignorance, blissful or not, not when the boy so fiercely wished for that shroud of clouds to disperse. He might still have mourned the loss of innocence, however, and the return of too much pain… 

A chill ran down his back. He swallowed, trying to corral his thoughts, trying to be just a bit rational.

So. Matako said that the boy had come back from his talk with Nobume having aged even faster than usual. And now, two weeks later, he had apparently skipped town telling nobody where he was going. 

Nobume had given the boy two obvious trails to look up: finding people who had knowledge about how Altana worked, or finding out more about dragon holes. Of course, if he could find knowledgeable people, and if they were as free with their knowledge as Ane and Mone had been to Gintoki, he would also find out about dragon holes. 

Those miko sisters… Perhaps Shinsaku had come to Edo in search of them. Their shrine could be a place for Gintoki to start looking. However, it was a fair bit away from where he was right now.

The boy might also not have come to Edo at all. Or maybe he would be here later. 

Or he might have come here but for a different reason: if he had found out about dragon holes already, perhaps he would want to visit the ones in the capital first. Gintoki knew of five such places here in Edo. He had memorized the countrywide map of all known dragon holes that time years ago, and his mind, fuzzy as it could be in other respects, still retained that knowledge: he could place each single opening of power on the map, those places where the Altana emerged from the ground. 

The smallest and weakest of the dragon holes in Edo was where the miko sisters’ current shrine was. Two larger ones were claimed and worked by Altana mining companies, one entirely Amanto-owned and one partially Earth-owned. But both companies seemed determined to squeeze out as much Altana as they could before the government could finish fine-tuning the new, more stringent regulations that had been talked about for ages. Both those places were cheerless, charmless places under strong guard. 

The fourth dragon hole in Edo had previously been on ground leased by an Amanto embassy, whose planet’s reputation in the galactic community had suffered in recent years. Those guys had used the dragon hole as their own internal power source, but the government had reclaimed the area after the embassy’s lease ran out. However, debate now raged on what the city should do with it, and so it lay temporarily quiet and undisturbed, if not completely unguarded. 

And then, of course, there was the space terminal. 

Gintoki didn’t want to go there.  
He _really_ didn’t want to go there for this purpose particularly.

He clinked his spoon against the empty glass of milkshake, trying to use the dissonant sound to shake his mind free, to stop it from going heavy and torpid again. Might not be in Edo. Might be looking up other sources of information, elsewhere in the country. Might journey to the ruins of the school and to Oboro’s grave. To the dragon hole where he had been found as a baby. To the marine dragon hole where _Shōyō_ had been found as a baby. To that one picturesque shrine with the rocks… or that one in the grove… or that one by the spring… The boy’s hometown didn’t give much of a geographical clue: there was no notable dragon hole right there, and the ones closest to it were three or four sites all in completely different directions.

Gintoki’s head felt hot and heavy. He leaned his chin on his palm, elbow on table, letting out a small groan.

He should call Shinpachi and Kagura. He could already picture their accusing looks if he waited till later. 

He really should call Zura, too.

And that was when he found out his crappy second-hand mobile phone had already run out of power. “Seriously?!” he burst out. “You’re choosing now of all times to bail on me? They’re all going to think I clammed up and didn’t call them on purpose!” Shinpachi would tsk-tsk at him, Kagura would give him a flat look… and Zura would cross his arms and look Disappointed... crap, he might even look hurt, and for real. “Gimme a break!” Gin said out loud. People turned to stare. He got up and trudged out of the cafe, then picked up his walking pace, and a few minutes later he had started jogging.

No, he didn’t want to go to the space terminal. A heavy weight was lying on his chest at the thought, but he knew that kind of weight; it was the kind you had to take responsibility for and pick up, and deal with. 

Besides, he actually did want to call the other three. Maybe not relishing the conversation in advance, but he didn’t want to be the only one knowing. And the space terminal was one of the few places in this benighted era where you could still find public payphones. 

He ran through the glittering, crowded night streets of the most modern part of the capital, swerving to avoid passersby. His heart was pounding hard, his bokuto was solidly in place, his hands and feet were cold, and it didn’t fully feel real. He kept trying to go faster, to force his legs to move those extra seconds that would mean it would finally feel real.

Gintoki had reasoned and guessed and assumed, and then finally, reluctantly, gone with the least appealing choice (because wouldn’t it be just like that bastard to make things harder for him?).

There was a thought behind his choice.  
But he was still completely wrong.


	6. Like Unfinished Works, We Sway And Sway, And Still We Keep On Playing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also set entirely post-canon.

When it came unleashed, when what he’d called out for careened towards him, when it seemed to reach him, to touch him -- then at first all the sounds of the world utterly vanished, and the shapes and colours fell away too; there was only silence and blankness, like a page unwritten. Except he thought he could hear the sound of a pen from far away, scritching and scritching, for a few long, long seconds. He couldn’t move a millimetre. He could hardly even think of moving. The power was moving through him, over him, pulsating heavily.

Then he was surrounded by fiercely running water, pressing in on him, throwing him around, sending huge strong waves against him -- doing everything except drowning him, because he could still breathe, strangely, as if the power that pulsated in him now (in a gleaming and blinking way, different from the feel of the continuous stream, but converging on it) had temporarily endowed him with gills. But the violence of the stream, of eddies and counterstreams and waves still took his breath away from him, he felt as if he’d been punched many times over till he finally, finally reached a shore, lying there naked. 

He ought to shiver with cold, but that sensation itself drained away; there was no freezing cold to focus on, to take refuge in. There was only him, the unseen other him, and then -- still intangible at first and just out of reach, then all of a sudden crowding in, filling everything up, sight and sound and smell and touch, a cacophonic chaos here to name, to change, to possess, to engulf, to grab, to hold, to give, to devour, to deplete, to enrich, to rage, to be everywhere, finally -- they came, the memories.

* * *

* * *

* * *

Katsura dreamt that he could see a high grassy plain through which several people, seen at a distance as fuzzy shadows, were hurrying back and forth, but without any clear view of where they should be going. He saw all of this from afar, from above, as if it were part of a map or a model, but at the same time he was also down there as one of the shadows (this kind of double-being wasn’t uncommon for him in dreams). The air was mild and flowery, not yet too hot or humid, as in late spring. The wind bore a fresh scent of cedar and salt. 

At this point he started to become aware of the sound of running water. Even though it was salt he had smelled, it was the sound of a rushing stream he could hear, not the heavy beat of ocean waves meeting the coastline. He stopped being divided in two and was just one person in the grass, turning around as he tried to locate the source of the sound. Those other flittering, uncertain shadow-figures on the plain were all gone now, and he stood alone.

Slowly, he started to move towards what seemed the direction of the sound, even though all he could see was the grass around him, stretching out and waving in the breeze, fading into mist in the distance. The more he walked, the more real and solid the plain felt: the straws of grass pressed against his legs and kimono, and he had to take care not to stumble on the uneven ground. He knew he was himself as always, but he felt so simple and unquestioning, so oddly whole, more like a peacefully browsing animal than his normal muddled human self. He rather liked that thought. 

It seemed he was carrying a picnic basket, with rice cakes and a tea thermos and a blanket. The sun was nice, and it was tempting to just sit down in the grass and think of nothing, letting the wind pass him by. But the scent drove him onward, the stream he couldn’t see pulled at him, and he thought to himself, _No, we can have a picnic together once I get there…_ He didn’t actually know who “we” included, but it made sense to think like that, the way things do in dreams.

Sometimes he had to adjust his direction a little, to match when the sound of running water changed as well. Still looking down at the ground, he started to notice signs of nearby trees. There were pinecones and needles in the grass, but also old fallen leaves from maples, willows, birches…. Raising his head, far away inside the mist he thought he could see a few high tree-like shadows. 

There was a sense of, of _roundness_ in the air, as if he was very close to some kind of completion, of fulfillingness. He knew he shouldn’t dawdle, the stream might grow quiet again, but he strode forward with a sense of faith and utter trust. Almost as if Sensei was there. Maybe Sensei was the breeze, guiding him onwards? 

He didn’t have the picnic basket anymore, his hands were empty, but they were reaching out as if trying to grab the vibrant air. As he came closer to the shadows of the trees in the mist, he thought: _I have seen something like this before… a group of trees looking just like this... But was there a river back then?_

Just as he thought he would be able to put his finger on something which was truly vital and necessary, a harsh sound interrupted everything. 

The grassy plain fell away, and he was sitting in his bedroom in darkness, his telephone ringing all too noisily a metre away.

He didn’t get many telephone calls in the middle of the night these days, but old habits die hard. He quickly sat up on his haunches, grabbed his clothes, wallet and keys with one hand while his other hand picked up the telephone. “Yes?” he said, backing towards the half-opened window behind him as he spoke. It was still dark outside. He thought there was a smell of lilacs in the air, for a moment, but that couldn’t be right: it was far too early in spring for lilacs.

“Oi, Zura.”  
Gintoki’s voice was hoarse and sounded very tired.

“Not Zura, Katsura. What is it?”

“I’ve… I kinda…” A pause. Then, “It’s happening, Zura. But he’s not here.”

Katsura swallowed, the hand holding the phone feeling sweaty all of a sudden. “You sound really tired, Gintoki,” he pointed out. “Are you drunk? You know, I don’t believe I’ve read the manuscript for this scene, I can’t keep up with you.”

“I’m at the space terminal. Matako told me. Nobume, too. And my phone stopped working. There’s payphones here. I had to go look -- Zura, he might be coming back. The boy. He’s started looking. Nobume, he talked to her, he… and now he’s run away.”

“...The space terminal? You think he might have gone there?”

“I thought, maybe. Nobume told him about the dragon holes. And now he’s run away… But I’ve looked and looked and if he were here I’d know by now, yes it’s a huge place but -- I would sense him -- I’ve been all over…”

“I understand,” said Katsura in a low tone. Gintoki sounded absolutely dead on his feet. “Go home and get some sleep, Gintoki. I’ll take over. I’ll call you when I find something.”

“Shinpachi -- Kagura-- I was goin’ to call ‘em too but these stupid payphones are so complicated--” His speech started to slur, but by this point Katsura could hear the nuance that it was from exhaustion and not, probably, from drink. 

“I’ll call Leader and Shinpachi-kun and explain in a few hours,” promised Katsura. “When it’s no longer nighttime. Gintoki, you need to go home… or wait, do you have money for a taxicab?” He doubted that this extremely fatigued Gintoki was in a state to get himself home by public transit. Maybe Kagura could go get him with Sadaharu? But she was always so crotchety and muddle-headed when roused at night. Maybe Katsura ought to call a cab himself and go get Gintoki… Really, he supposed Gintoki would be fine sleeping in a seat somewhere at the terminal if he had to, but Katsura didn’t like having him be there longer than he needed to. Perhaps he would have very dark dreams.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, I’ll manage,” mumbled Gintoki, “I’m not _that_ out of it, wighead.” Then he hung up on him.

Katsura sighed, rubbing his forehead, letting go of that mild worry: Gintoki would be fine, at least physically. He thought for a second about calling Elizabeth and sharing this news, but no, it was the same as with Shinpachi and Kagura: too early to call people and wake them up. Elizabeth had his own flat these days, although it was only a stone’s throw away and he came over to Katsura’s place all the time. Katsura wrote a note on the kitchen table for him, just in case he wouldn’t be able to reach him on the mobile phone later. Then he made himself a cup of tea and tried to focus. Just now, while Gintoki had been talking, Katsura had had a flash in his mind of the dream he’d awoken from. What had been in it, again? Grass, an invisible river? 

And those high trees, peering through the mist…

He froze. He put his cup down without drinking. Yes. Wasn’t that… it was, wasn’t it? 

When Gintoki had left Edo for those two years searching for dragon holes, Katsura, staying behind to play the politics game, had also obtained a map of dragon holes himself.  
Bit by bit, he had memorized it, looking up descriptions of each and every site. Later, during the years that followed, he had gone to visit many of those dragon holes on excursions away from the city -- usually when he was already travelling for a different reason, but not always. 

And he recalled it now, a shrine not terribly far from here, perhaps two hours away by train… A shrine in a grove, with high trees and sacred cords tying them together, on elevated ground within a larger forest. A beautiful and peaceful place. The trees had been pine and maple, with willows and birches nearby… And the mental picture matched those shades in the mist of his dream. 

“All right,” he said out loud to himself. “I will go there first.”

* * *

Three hours later he’s sitting on a solar-powered train rushing through the outskirts of Edo. He’s brought a _completely sensible and practical_ backpack which is _not in any way going overboard_ , although it is perhaps rather fully packed. He’s also brought a likewise _completely practical_ suitcase. And a picnic basket to round things off, because why not? 

He’s called Shinpachi and Kagura and has texted Elizabeth, but he hasn’t told any of them exactly where he’s going, preferring to stay vague just in case he’s wrong after all. It’s obviously much too early to call Gintoki, whom Shinpachi has confirmed made it home all right and is sleeping soundly by now. Gintoki did call the youngsters right after he talked to Katsura after all. Sometimes, against all odds, the man can learn; Katsura will give him that much.

The calendar says spring, but it felt chilly as he walked to the train station in the early morning, and it looks even colder outside the train windows in the countryside. Nothing like the mild, clement weather in Katsura’s dream. He thinks back on the dream again, trying to summon the deep faith and serenity that filled him then. But his head is too full of thoughts spinning every which way, and he feels at the same time giddy with heady optimism and jumpy with busy, bouncy anxiety. His fingers are drumming on the small foldable table before him, his legs won’t be entirely still, and he doesn’t have the patience to read a book, or catch up on news, or even look at soothing pet pictures on his phone. 

He tries to smooth it all down, tries to take calming breaths. _Everything will be okay,_ he tells himself. _This will be good for Gintoki. It will make him happy._ It’s easier to think of a happy outcome in those terms.

Surely it will be fine. And then it will heal a big gaping wound in Gintoki, and his eyes will come alive much more often, and he will dare to be happy more thoroughly.  
He looks out through the window again, as the train goes past a small industrial area, then suburbs and more suburbs, then farms and wood that have only barely started to turn green. It will be awhile still until the cherry trees are in bloom. 

He thinks, _I will step back. I will do this, I will bring him back, yes. I have a picnic basket and everything. And then I will step back, and he will be fine. They will both be fine._

It’s on that note, finally, that his motions calm down, his breathing turns slower, and he’s able to reach a sense of peacefulness once more. His head is turned again to the window, but other landscapes fill his mind’s eye for most of the remaining journey.

* * *

He reaches the right town, disembarks from the train and eventually makes it to the right country road, a little disoriented since his map is out of date and the town has seen new building projects in the intervening years. It’s now mid-morning, and the weather doesn’t seem to be able to make up its mind. One moment it’s mostly sunny (if still cold) with just a couple of clouds in the sky, next it’s mostly cloudy with just a few blue streaks in the sky and the air feeling raw and humid. It makes Katsura think of all the hidden energy in the ground waiting to get strong enough to leap up and spring into green leaf and blossom.

There aren’t many pedestrians or vehicles coming down this road in either direction. And once he turns left on a more narrow road still, soon making its way into the woods, it’s even more deserted. The gray-brown landscape with a few green and yellow spots reminds him of long, lonely journeys after the end of the war. But the early spring flowers are cheering.

His hands and feet are tingling, knowing that in a few more bends of the meandering forest road, the sacred grove will come into view.

(Meanwhile, over in Edo, Gintoki is still asleep but no longer in a deep dreamless state. He finds himself walking through narrow alleys, up on dark crowded steps, the darkness closing in on him as he keeps walking, hunting for the hint of a distant light, a spark to catch even if it might burn him… After a while, he starts to become aware of the sound of running water: it doesn’t seem to fit the crowded urban darkness around him, sounding like a brook in springtime, rushing down a hillside after the rain. Perhaps the brook is hiding behind the great brick wall to Gintoki’s right. Perhaps he can even hear them, faintly, the voices of children splashing around in the water; and smell the faint ghost of their scent, and of the trees.

He knows, on some level, that he’s dreaming. But he has an image of himself lying asleep in the shade under a tree, close to such a rushing brook, instead of his familiar bedroom in Kabuki-chô. The part of him that knows he’s asleep still believes he is somewhere far away from the city.) 

Katsura pauses to drink some water from his picnic basket. A large cumulus cloud covers the sun, and a cold wind makes him shiver. He digs into his backpack for the big red scarf that Kagura gave him as a birthday present last June, wraps it around his neck and goes on. 

The road bends, and he’s met by the sight of three trees lying fallen right across it. They’re not the only ones, either -- as he looks around, he can see a number of trees that have toppled over on both sides of the road and further into the forest. It must have happened very recently, or the road would have been cleared by now.

But it’s easy enough to step over the tree trunks, and as the grove and its shrine finally come into view a few minutes later, he sees to his relief that the trees in the shrine itself are still standing. Other trees lie fallen around it, but the shrine trees stand tall and strong, and the sacred cord still holds and hasn’t been torn. 

But… Is his dream coming alive? There’s no grand river, of course, but as he leaves the road proper for the path that goes right to the shrine, he finds a small brook running at his side. The shrine is standing on slightly elevated ground, so the water runs downhill from it. Kastura can’t remember any brook being here when he came here before, a few years ago. 

And the littering is new, too. There’s a shoe lying on his path, and another shoe on top of a bush ten metres away. Further up, there’s a pair of torn black jeans and a torn-up black sweater. Right by the shrine’s boundary, a white t-shirt is hanging from a branch, also ripped up. A prickle is running down Katsura’s spine, and he sweats as he claps his hands and enters the shrine. 

It’s a dragon hole, a source of Altana… But now there is also a source of water in the midst of the shrine, where the tiny brook comes from. This also wasn’t here before. This is new. And right next to the spring is a young man, lying on the mossy ground, breathing slowly with eyes closed, swept in nothing but a gray blanket. 

There is nobody else here right now. Katsura kneels at his side, opens his backpack, drags out a thicker blanket, extra clothes, a spare bottle of water… but first he puts the man’s head into his lap, very carefully. 

He bends down and blows hot air into the other man’s ear. 

“Wake up, you.” That’s all he whispers, his tongue too thick and heavy to form more words than that. 

The man frowns, scrunches his eyelids tight. Katsura pokes his cheek; he finally opens his eyes, taking a long, deep breath. 

He blinks, and blinks again. Looks up at him. Then he manages to grin. 

“Hey…” he says in a hoarse, weak voice, “I didn’t sign up to be greeted by this kind of middle-aged face. Get a new wig, Zura.” 

Katsura gasps, sputters. “Why, you…!” He scowls. “Is that any way to talk to your sempai? Just because I have a few crows’ feet now! And there’s nothing wrong with my hair!” 

He uncorks the spare water bottle and holds it out. “Here, drink some water, you fool! What the hell did you do to your clothes, anyway? Good thing I brought a spare kimono and more!” He points to the pile of clothing next to them: besides the ochre kimono there’s also a white underkimono, a haori, a pair of socks and two sandals. Katsura has come prepared. 

Takasugi takes the bottle and drinks the water without answering. Katsura does his best to wrap the blanket he brought around him without moving him too much. Then he roots inside his picnic basket and as soon as Takasugi has lowered the water bottle he hands him a homemade rice ball. “Eat,” he says shortly. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” mutters Takasugi. But he's already started chewing on the rice ball. For a moment Katsura is reminded how similar he and Gintoki can be. He valiantly resists the impulse to wipe stray rice grains off Takasugi’s face. Instead he scrutinizes it. The man looks healthy, has both eyes intact, no rings underneath either of them, a good hue to his face; his facial features, however, aren’t exactly like how Katsura remembers them from back in the day. Just like how it was with child Shinsaku, his current features are close to those he had in his former life, but not identical. 

“Kind of like when a cartoonist starts to draw a new manga and reuses character designs,” he mumbles to himself. “Or even the difference between the start and end of a manga with the same character.” Takasugi glances up at him and gives him a dry look, but only reaches for the water bottle. 

After he’s had some more water, he mutters, “Don’t wanna lie like this. Help me sit up.” Katsura lets out a put-upon sigh, but does pull him up and then adjusts his seating so Takasugi can lean against his back for a few minutes. 

They sit like that, back to back, for a while. The sun glitters on the spring’s surface. 

Takasugi is taking long, slow breaths. 

He moves, sits up straighter, and reaches for the picnic basket wordlessly. Katsura hands him a fishcake this time around, then the thermos with green tea. As he pours out tea for him, he says, “You’re not going to ask me why I’m here?”

“Well, you’ve long had a good information network,” observes Takasugi, munching on the fishcake. “You can be hard to shake.”

This is so typical of Takasugi, not wanting to look uncool by expressing surprise. Katsura has to smile. “Be like that, then,” he says. “Anyway, it was just a dream.” He pauses, then adds, “I see you’ve been causing havoc on the landscape; how typical. What on earth happened to your clothes?” 

Takasugi closes his eyes again. “I don’t really know,” he mumbles, making a dismissive gesture with one hand. “S’ all pretty hazy.” He looks cold, so Katsura adjusts the blanket he brought, wrapping it tighter around him.

* * *

* * *

Everything was still and sunlit. There was the sound of trees rustling in the wind, traffic noise in the distance, the burbling from a brook close by, and the sound of Zura’s long, patient breathing. 

Crows were cawing. 

Chirps from small birds, calls from song birds. And… wasn’t that the call of the lesser cuckoo, the _hototogisu_ so fabled in poetry ? But it was too early in spring for that… 

Well, here _he_ was. Too early for him to be here too, in this state. He shouldn’t be alive at all. Or he should be nothing but a blithely ignorant young child, as small as his calendar years said he should be. This second time around. 

He couldn’t hear that bird call again. Maybe it had only been a passing aural hallucination.

Maybe Zura was only a passing hallucination as well, just affecting more of the senses. The thought made him chuckle.

But no. He sat up straighter again, adjusting his seating. He wouldn’t fall for that line of thinking. He hadn’t come back all this way back to the world -- or, put another way, he hadn’t left home and gone here to get his older self back -- just to start thinking life was all about common sense. There shouldn’t have been any _hototogisu_ singing, but there was. That was all.

He finished the second fishcake and a tiny octopus-shaped sausage, wiping his greasy fingers on Zura’s blanket. It was only now he noticed the small spring’s presence in the shrine. When had that happened? He had been too swept-up in the metaphysics last night, not really aware of how the whole event affected his physical surroundings.

“There should be a sword here somewhere, and the sheath for it,” he said. “Also my leather satchel.”

“Oh, so you expect me to go looking for them? You need to learn to take better care of your things… a sword? What do you mean, a sword?” Zura had already started wandering around the shrine area. “You’re far too small for a sword. I mean, young. I mean… you know what I mean!”

“Don’t knock it, I used that sword to get some punks off my back on the way here.” He poured more tea from the thermos, wishing it had held booze instead. “It’s a gift from the director of the police department, if you can believe it.”

“...Hmph. she’s so capricious. Really, what a thing to do… huh. There’s a book here.”

Takasugi turns his head to see Zura hold a small blue book in one hand. The leather satchel was at his feet. “Oi, give that back here, you. That’s my diary.” It must have fallen out of the satchel at some point during the night’s event.

Zura, who had stopped respecting Takasugi’s personal boundaries at some distant point back in his first childhood, was browsing through the book perfunctorily, as if needing to check the veracity of Takasugi’s statement. “I see, I see. So it is a diary,” he mumbled. “Yes, very much a teenage boy’s diary,” he pronounced, as if it had been in doubt. Takasugi wanted to hit him, but he needed to conserve his strength right now. 

He looked around and realized the sheath of his sword was right in front of him, hiding in plain sight in the heather just outside the shrine’s boundary. With a sigh, he managed to get to his feet and trudged over there, then had to sit down again.

“Pathetic;” he announced self-critically. “I’m moving like an old man. That’s you, not me.”

“Stop that! I’m still several years from 40, you know!!” Zura exclaimed indignantly. 

“You’re ancient. Always have been. You were an old man at eight.” Takasugi started to dress himself from the pile of borrowed clothes. The kimono was plain cotton and too simple for his taste (both old and new tastes), but at least it wasn’t one of Zura’s regular blue ones. Idly, he wondered if he could mix his newer rock-inspired look with traditional clothing in the future; he supposed he had some money to save up.

“I see your sword now,” Zura announced, sounding serious again. “It’s in the spring.”

Huh. “Well, get it out.” 

“You’re so demanding,” huffed Zura, but crouched down and bent forward to fish out the sword. “I really shouldn’t. We _do_ still have a sword ban, you know, even if it’s less strict now.”

“Yes, I do know. And I also see you’re still carrying your sword, so stop being a hypocrite already, Zuramp.” 

Zura threw the satchel at him; Takasugi ducked out of the way. “A sword in a spring…” Zura went on, more thoughtfully, “...it’s like something from a fantasy anime, isn’t it? Scaring off hoodlums, is that really all you’ve been using it for?”

“Give it to me!” said Takasugi impatiently. “And the book too. I used the sword to draw out Altana from the ground last night, as a point of focus. Don’t ask me to do it again, it was just on impulse.” He had also used the blade to draw circles and symbols on the ground, right in the centre where the spring was now. But he was dubious that that had been of any use at all. 

“Why would I ask that of you?” Zura walked back and handed over the sword and the diary. Takasugi sheathed the sword. “You keep saying, ‘ _I_ did this and that’,” Zura added quietly. “It’s still you? Are you Shinsaku, or Shinsuke? Or both?” 

Takasugi checked to see that his wallet was still in the satchel. Good. But he put the diary inside his kimono instead, this time. “It’s both.” He got to his feet, then leaned one hand against the nearest tree for support against the dizziness. “It had to be both. Shin-chan isn’t erased, he’s me as well. I have two childhoods in my head now.” He drew his hands together, entwined his fingers, drew them out again. “Like that.” 

Zura gave a small sigh. “I don’t quite understand, but I’m relieved all the same,” he confessed. “All right, time to go. You should put your socks on, too.” He packed everything up again into his various packs: blanket and thermos and leftovers and the tabi socks that Takasugi had ignored (Zura grumbled at that). They couldn’t find the thin gray blanket anywhere, as if it had evaporated. Takasugi wasn’t too astonished at that, since he didn’t recall having brought it to this place to begin with. 

A part of him didn’t want to leave the shrine. There was a sense of order and balance right here, on this shrine among the trees as the sun broke shone down from the opening in the clouds. Outside waited disorder, chaos, unrest, uncertainty. 

Then again, if he had been at peace -- the new him _or_ the old him -- he wouldn’t have come here, he wouldn’t be in this state now.

“Come on, let’s go,” said Zura, beckoning him forward with a worried look in his eyes. Takasugi allowed him to put a supporting arm on his shoulder as they passed out through the shrine gate. just for now. Zura had to retoggle his bags to get one arm free, but it wasn’t like it was Takasugi’s fault he’d brought that much stuff.

“You totally want to call Gintoki, don’t you?” he said, climbing over a fallen tree.

“Yes, I do,” Zura admitted, “But not yet. Once we’ve reached the main road.”

“Tch, what’s the difference?” He didn’t really have the energy to argue the point, though. Better save it for the long journey back.

* * *

* * *

It was around noon when Gintoki woke up. He hadn’t felt as exhausted as he’d been the night before in a long time -- running all over the space terminal, in both public and restricted areas, trying so hard to _sense_ , to listen inwards, to feel a presence, to just _know_ where he should be going, but all the while the familiar sense of defeat had only been growing -- yet when he managed to make it home (Otose took one long look at him and then agreed to pay off the taxi driver, saying under her breath they would discuss this matter _later_ ) he’d still pretty much expected his sleep would be uneasy in spite of the exhaustion, full of nightmares.

But instead, he woke up feeling weirdly refreshed. He vaguely remembered the dream he’d had, something about splashing around in the countryside and having something to look for. True, he hadn’t been able to find his quarry in the dream, either, but that hadn’t bothered him so much when he drifted out of sleep. A new calmness had settled inside him, very different from the lethargic feeling he’d had when he sat at his desk for so long the day before. He hummed a theme from an old anime as he got up, went to the bathroom, got dressed, drew a comb through his hair a good number of times and then went to the kitchen.

There was rice left in the rice cooker -- was it Kagura’s or Shinpachi’s doing? Neither of them was here right now, but looking around, he figured they must both have been in earlier. Sadaharu was back, gently snoring in a corner, and his moped keys lay on the kitchen table. Next to the keys was a note in Shinpachi’s neat handwriting. 

The note said, ‘We’ve heard the news and we’re out looking, too. Please call Katsura-san when you’re up. I parked the moped at the usual place. By the way, you really should get a more reliable mobile phone.’

“Sheesh, with what money, four-eyes? Stop nagging me!” commented Gintoki out loud, but he did go to check that his crappy, beat-up, second-hand mobile was indeed plugged in and fully charged by now. Then he finished breakfast and his latest JUMP magazine, put on his boots and went outside (being careful not to rouse Otose’s attention); he got on his moped and set off for Edo’s central railway station, guided by pretty much nothing but instinct. Or perhaps just a whim, who knew. 

The space terminal was just one of Edo’s dragon holes, the other four remained to be investigated… But he was already convinced he needed to look beyond the city. He didn’t have any idea which destination he should choose, or even which direction he should look in, but he told himself that once he was at the train station, seeing the big screens of arrivals and departures, he might just _know_. And once he knew, he’d find some way to scrounge up the money for a train ticket. 

Of course, the central train station was itself very close to the space terminal, but he found he was just fine returning there again already. This was different. It was a new day!

And he couldn’t just stay home and wait and do nothing. Not when it came to this.

His mobile phone rang just as he stood outside the station being busy locking up his moped. 

“What’s up?” he said, trying to sound nonchalant, though his calm was already shakier. He’d recognized Zura’s number on the display screen right away. 

“Gintoki, do you think you can be in Edo Station in about two hours?” 

He took a moment to boggle, then rallied, “Shouldn’t be that much of a problem given that I’m there right now already.” _Where the hell did you go, Zura? And what happened there??_ he wanted to shout, but… it was better to wait it out, he knew that. 

“You are?” Zura sounded baffled. “But how did you-- Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. I will be coming in on the 3:23 train on platform 2E. I’m-- I’m bringing someone. Can you meet us?” 

“Zura…” 

“Look--” Zura started to sound defensive “--I simply have to get away for a meeting I can’t get out of by four o’clock. Also I need to return a late library book today. I blew the month’s budget on these damn train tickets, so please just trust me and come meet us in time.” 

“You -- I-- that’s just an exaggeration, stop that, I _know_ you have reserves these days, you haven’t blown anything!” Gintoki fumed, taking refuge in irrelevant small stuff. “You’re just sulking because you think you’ve got a thrifty reputation to uphold! Forget that, nobody is thinking you’re some kind of thrift genius, everybody knows you’re primarily and utterly a lunatic!” _Also, do you believe that your phone is under surveillance, or would you just be cryptic regardless?_

“It’s not lunatic, it’s Katsura. A part-time teacher doesn't make much money! Just come to the platform in time, Gintoki. I have things to do and you need to be there.” 

He hung up. 

Gintoki sighed, finished locking his moped, and entered the big, crowded railway station. He told himself it wouldn’t be too bad to just sit and take it easy for two hours. He could watch the crowd, especially the girls in mini-kimonos, and maybe be able to bum a cup of coffee from some naive tourists. 

But… 

If it had been just the boy that Zura had found, with no ancient memories unlocked in him, then Gintoki was pretty much 100% certain that Zura would have made that fact clearer. If he had run into some totally different person who was somehow relevant right now, he’d have hinted at that, too. But just saying _‘I’m bringing someone’_ and nothing else -- 

He felt lightheaded; he knew he should find a place to sit down sooner rather than later. His fingers were reaching into empty space, all on their own. As if trying to grab hold of something invisible. He unclenched them and breathed out, slowly. 

And instead of sitting down at some cosy spot somewhere in the main hall to watch the crowd from, he found himself walking onwards and continuing directly to platform 2E to wait for the train right there. Even if it took hours.

This was where he needed to be. 

* * *

The train arrived on time with a stream of people pouring out of it, some of them diverted into eddies by other people coming to meet them, while others poured on towards the main hall and eventual exit. 

Gintoki waited in the middle of it all. At first he stood still, impassively, but eventually he started to walk back and forth, trying to catch a glimpse of one familiar face, maybe two familiar faces. His heart was beating faster now. There were just way too many people here.

“It would just be so like that bastard to come back sneaking up on me,” he mumbled to himself, shooting a quick look behind him. “Repeating his fucking manga introduction and everything...”

“But you make it so easy,” a voice said in his ear. 

Gintoki froze. He turned his head, slowly. 

“Middle-aged guy,” the young man in front of him adds. There is a sloppily hidden sword at his side, and in one hand he’s carrying an incongruous picnic basket. 

Gintoki stood very still. It was one thing to believe yourself prepared, to come up with some witty words in advance, to figure out what should be the right way to conduct yourself… No, no, no, he couldn’t hold onto it, to hell with all the expectations of coolness, and he didn’t care if this guy would have preferred to cross swords with him as a greeting instead. He stopped second-guessing himself and surged forward, grabbing Takasugi -- _yes it’s him, yes it’s him, yes it’s him_ \-- by the shoulders, shaking him back and forth and back and forth and left and right. Touching, smelling, seeing. 

He ruffled his hair and pulled at one of his ears -- that earned him a hair-pulling in retaliation, which he ignored -- he looked in stunned wonder at the intact left eye, noted the small differences in facial traits (and height, hm) that proved it really was Shin-chan’s body after all, just grown even older now -- and leaned in close not even caring what onlookers might think. He opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. 

He grabbed him tighter instead, and Takasugi hissed and glared but didn’t actually try to squirm out of his grip. 

“...Where the hell did Zura go?” Gintoki finally managed to say, his voice hoarse and his tongue thick. 

“Claimed he had an appointment to keep and ran away.” Takasugi’s voice was dry, he was rolling his eyes. “Stuck me with this damn basket.”

Gintoki frowned. “Could have stuck around for a few minutes at least,” he muttered. “If that’s a real appo in the first place.” One moment’s hesitation, but then he acted, not wishing to lose the momentum and give too much of it to this guy instead; who knows what he’d do? “Come on.” He stepped back and let go of Takasugi’s shoulders, instead seizing his sleeve and pulling him towards the nearest flight of stairs leading away from the platform. “There’s got to be a bar somewhere near here.”

“You’re planning on letting a minor pay? What a sleaze.” Takasugi allowed himself to be pulled along for a few steps, then elbowed him and grabbed his sleeve back. But he kept up with him side by side. 

“Minor? Maybe according to your faked birth certificate, but you look old enough to vote or rent a porno video to me,” replied Gintoki. “And yeah, I don’t have any money on me so you’re paying.” 

The bar they found was just two streets away from the railway station and was rather small and dark, but at least it wasn’t some overpriced tourist trap. Takasugi looked pretty exhausted once he flopped down in a corner, even though he’d presumably done nothing these past couple of hours but sit his ass in a train car. The waiter brought them a bottle of sake and two cups, plus a bowl of dried squid snacks.

“Zura didn’t tell me a single fucking thing except to come meet your train,” said Gintoki, pouring out sake for the other. “Where did he find you? It was by a dragon hole, right?” 

Takasugi wiped his hands on the towel by the table and took a dried squid. “Yes. I don’t know if you’ve been there, it’s in a grove in a forest in the [X] prefecture not that far from the sea.” He poured sake into Gintoki’s cup. 

“Oh. Yeah, I know that one.” Gintoki took a drink, musing. “Pretty place. That was the last place I went to before I found Shōyō by the sea shrine.” 

“I wondered what would have happened if I’d gone to that shrine instead.” 

“You’d have been pretty damn cold, for one thing.” 

“Hnh.” 

“Tatsuma… Tatsuma wrote something. Before. After Matako had found you.” Gintoki holds out his cup for a refill, then finishes it in one go. “He thought it might have been Shōyō that brought your soul back in the first place. If it was you. We never really knew for sure, you know.” 

Takasugi was quiet for what seemed like a long time. Then he took another drink and said, calmly, “It’s possible he was right. I think I was supposed to be all cleansed. A new person entirely. But like an inky black cloud, the darkness from my past couldn't go away completely, and since I couldn't be dragged to Hell after all, or be stuck as a ghost on this plane, it leaked into what was supposed to be my new life.” 

“Whaddya mean it leaked into? How?” 

“I could sense it, I guess?” Takasugi made an impatient gesture and ate some more dried squid. “The new me could tell the old me was still out there in a way and I decided I wanted it back. So, here I am. With all these rubbish memories." He waved dismissively into the air -- and towards Gintoki. 

Gintoki groaned, hiding his face in his hand. "Man," he muttered, tongue feeling thick, "you're sounding exactly like I figured you'd sound if you ever managed to come back. Fucking edgelord. I need more booze.” He filled his cup himself this time. “Let’s get a new bottle, this one’s almost empty.” 

“You pay for it this time. You probably have some money hidden in your pocket, you damn con man.” Takasugi grabbed the bottle back from Gintoki and poured out the last of the sake into his own cup. “The boy didn’t go away, you know,” he added, rocking the cup slightly, letting the liquid swish around before he drank again. “I’m still him.”

“So you’re really a literal infant, huh?” Gintoki waved at the waiter and ordered a new bottle. They could fight about who would pay what once the bill came. 

“I’m in the prime of my life, unlike certain middle-aged guys who are probably going to lose half their hair soon.” 

Gintoki glared at him, not wanting to reveal a certain fear he felt related to this guy’s rapid aging -- what if it couldn’t be slowed down? But at least he was back for now, at least there was that much -- “You’re going to regret saying that, damn brat,” he said. “You don’t have your old muscle memory back, do you? Let alone your actual old muscles and endurance. I bet I could beat you with my hands tied against my back with just a twig in my mouth, the way you are now.” 

“Hooo?” Takasugi leaned away, grinning nastily. “Those are brave words indeed. I might need a few days getting my body in order, but I’ll be sure to take you up on the offer.” He snatched the bottle out of Gintoki's hand to fill his own cup first, ignoring Gintoki's grousing. “The new me will have fun beating up on the damn skeezy guy who kept lurking in the shadows as he grew up, too. Too scared to have an actual conversation, were you?” 

“Hey! I-- I wasn’t there all that often! And I had my reasons not to intrude! I figured out the new you was meant to be happy and fine, and whole and at peace, but nooo, he just had to go the edgelord route and throw away all that?” Gintoki subsided as the waiter returned, asking if they wanted something more to eat, and ordered some fried chicken _karaage_ for them both, although Takasugi interrupted and insisted on getting sashimi instead.

“Seriously,” Gintoki resumed as the waiter left again, “you realize that the new you has got pretty much exactly the personality profile of some daft teenager in an anime who wants to do dark magic for the fun of it and gets it into the head to summon some dumbass demon? Learn some preservation instincts, already!!” 

“Ha, you said ‘demon’,” said Takasugi, leaning his head in his palm and smirking at him. “You were the one who always made fun of the word Kiheitai in the first place.” 

“It was a metaphor, a metaphor!” 

“Don’t bother me over some stupid metaphor! Come back and complain once _you’ve_ been reincarnated, idiot!” 

Their food arrived and they sat and munched in silence for a while. Gintoki realized that Takasugi had just been better at getting a rise out of him than the other way around, which seemed against the natural order of things. Well, maybe he could see it as a ‘welcome back’ gift, seeing as Gin didn’t have the money to pay for the bar bill. 

“What do you want to do now?” he asked. “For a job, I mean.” 

“Haven’t really given it much thought yet,” said Takasugi. “First step is getting good identity papers so I’ll get an official age that matches my look. After that, I’ll see. Maybe I’ll get into smuggling.” 

“Just become a host or something. If Okita could do it… I hate to admit it, but you always scored high on the popularity polls. Women like that kind of bad-boy air. Like Vegeta.” 

“Doesn’t really matter these days now that the manga is over, does it?” Takasugi finished his sashimi and put his chopsticks away. “I’m not like certain dumbass main characters who can’t stand not to be in the centre of things anymore.” 

Gintoki stared. “You… You’ve finally… You can see through the fourth wall!” 

Takasugi wiped his face. “It’s not all that it’s cracked up to be, this meta awareness,” he said. “Now that I know what you two meant by all that ridiculous nonsense you’d be spouting… Well, honestly I can finally appreciate you’re even bigger morons than I thought you were.” 

“I’m so proud of you.” Gintoki clapped him on the back and ruffled his hair energetically, choking a little. “I knew you could do it! One day, I knew even you would be able to-- !!” 

“Fucking-- stop that-- !! Takasugi squirmed and bit Gintoki on the wrist. 

“Ow! Stop overreacting!” Gintoki whacked him over the head. 

“You stop being a jerk!” Takasugi pulled his hair. 

“A jerk? I was being happy for you, eighth-grade bastard--” 

“Like hell you were!” 

“Hey, don’t take it out on me that you’re lousy at fighting now--” 

“I’ll show you lousy at fighting, shithead--” 

The waiter turned up and coughed reprovingly. They turned down their volume, muttering half-hearted apologies to him and promising to behave, since the sake was pretty good here and they didn’t feel like being thrown out yet. 

“Anyway,” said Gintoki, “I’m sure Zura would be happy to put you up, so don’t you even think about squatting over at my place. My landlady can’t stand retired boss villains.” That was code for, ‘if you have nowhere else to go you’re welcome to stay with me for the moment’. 

“Wouldn’t dream of setting my feet inside a pigsty like your home is bound to be,” said Takasugi, drinking deeply. That was most probably code for, ‘yeah, I might just take you up on that, depending’.

“Of course,” Gintoki went on pensively, “with Zura there’s always the risk that Elizabeth can pop up at any moment. He’s supposedly moved out, but you wouldn’t know it just from being there, he’s around all the time… Waving his signs and staring at you. Saying nothing. Being creepy and protective and creepy.”

“Gintoki, are you saying you’re letting yourself get cuckolded by a furry-cosplaying Amanto?” said Takasugi nastily. “How pathetic.”

A full-body shudder ripped through Gintoki. “Don’t even think such things! Zura would rip out your tongue for that, he always claims they’ve got a super-pure relationship, and for my own peace of mind I prefer to believe him. And he’s the one with the NTR kink, not me! Also, we’re not married,” he added belatedly. 

“Pervy geezers.” Takasugi filled up Gintoki’s cup to the brim and held out his own. Gintoki didn’t know why they were back to being mannerly, but he followed suit anyway. 

He didn’t bother pushing back on the insult. “We’ve got our moments,” he said, shrugging. “Man, I could really go for some ice cream. More bars should serve ice cream, y’know?” 

“You’re such an embarrassment.” 

“Next you’re going to say, ‘I can’t take you anywhere’”. Gintoki mimicked Takasugi’s voice but put even more of a bored drawl into it. Under the table, he pushed the side of his knee against Takasugi’s thigh, experimentally, half expecting to get pinched for his trouble. Possibly even stabbed. 

He got a push in return the same way first, thigh to knee; then a sandalled foot sneaked under one of his booted feet to shove his leg up to the underside of the table. 

“Charmless,” commented Gintoki. He leaned his elbow on the table, chin in palm, and gave Takasugi his best dead fish expression. 

“Brainless,” countered Takasugi, taking another drink from his cup. When he put it down on the table again, he swiftly reached out and grabbed Gintoki’s other hand, very ungently, letting his nails dig into the hand enough to sting. Then he let go. 

Gintoki’s mouth had gone dry. He didn’t move his hand away. He considered pressing his leg against the other’s under the table again, but a thought slowed him down. A part in his chest that felt colder than usual, even as another part was decidedly on the hot side. 

“I wonder what Zura was thinking,” he said, drumming his fingers against the table in a slow rhythm. “Why he had to pull that manoeuvre at the train station.” 

Takasugi gave him a weighing look, with slightly less of his usual familiar aren’t-you-an-idiot expression. He wasn’t smirking now. “Isn’t that obvious?” He kept his voice low, quiet. “You know how he is.” 

Gintoki felt a sudden flash of… not quite anger. Irritation? _You haven’t been around for years, you kept yourself apart from us so much before you died, how can you be so sure you still know what we’re like?_ He breathed out, slowly: it ebbed away from him as quickly as it had come. 

He groaned instead, kneading his forehead. “Shouldn’t be this damn difficult,” he mumbled. Now Takasugi was the one pressing his thigh against Gintoki’s knee, not quite as violent this time. A flush was on Gintoki’s cheeks as he coughed and drew himself up to call for the bill.

Takasugi did pay for the bill without much argument, and they left to get Gin’s moped. The weather was bright and sunny outside, still at least one hour till sunset. 

“ _You’re_ the pervy one,” he said, clearing his throat. “What was that, playing footsies? Poor old Gin-san can’t keep up with these teenage hormones.” 

“I know, I know. I could do so much better.” This time, Takasugi’s grin looked more like a real smile than a smirk. That had always been rare. The sunlight made his teeth glint. 

Gintoki couldn’t help but smiling, too. “Yeah. But you won’t,” he said simply. 

* * *

____

* * *

__The excuses he’d given weren’t completely fake. He really did have a library book to return, but it could have been renewed by telephone. He also really had an appointment with the Prime Minister herself -- but it was at five o’clock, not four, and it wasn’t actually all that urgent. Soyo had sent him a proposal she wanted his opinions about, but it could have waited until the next day._ _

__Mostly he just wanted to give the other two some time alone. It was the right thing to do. They needed that._ _

True, he did start doubting himself almost immediately after leaving the train platform, remembering that damned sword. This was Gintoki and Takasugi, after all. And Takasugi might not be as strong as he used to be, without the muscle memory of training hard and fighting hundreds of life-and-death battles, but he _did_ have a real sword tied to his belt while Gintoki would be carrying his wooden sword at best. What if he decided to launch an attack on Gintoki, just like that? Just to see which one was stronger? 

__And Gintoki in turn might also believe Takasugi to be stronger than he was, now, not sensing the difference in strength or realize how exhausted the man was right now until it was too late… Katsura swore under his breath, and sneaked back to spy on them, just a little. Thankfully they seemed to behave themselves, at least initially, and after he’d tailed them to a nearby izakaya he gave a sigh of relief and slipped away for real._ _

__First he went home to his quiet flat to get rid of his big backpack and suitcase, and also to pick up those government documents and to freshen up. Next off to the library. Then to a nondescript office building in central Tokyo where he used a code to identify himself on the intercom, before being let in and going up a rickety elevator and down several winding corridors before reaching a small room where Soyo and her closest assistant were already waiting for him._ _

__He apologized for being late and they started to go over the new draft proposal: it was a plan that could potentially mean employment both for many ex-Jōi ronin and a number of ex-Bakufu forces, now that things were finally being more peaceful and the Bakufu itself was a thing of the past. It was built on the development and reassessment of a number of earlier projects. Katsura had seen a lot of merits in this new proposal but also had a number of points he thought could use improvement, so the three of them buckled down and started to go through the hefty file together._ _

__Before they were through half of it, he became aware that Soyo and her assistant were glancing at each other, then back at him, and that his hands were trembling. He realized he was mixing up different passages, pointing things up that one of the others had already said, repeating himself._ _

__“Are you all right, Katsura-san?” asked Soyo with concern._ _

__He blinked. “I’m fine, Soyo-dono. I’m sorry, just a little distracted, just a little…” He abruptly started to laugh, and then there were suddenly tears in his eyes and he was laughing through them._ _

__Bewildered and confused, he wiped his eyes and drew deep breaths but the avalanche of small, almost soundless, but insistent chuckles kept coming through. “I’m just happy, I suppose,” he said, realizing it was true as he said it. His hands were trembling, and his knees were shaking, too. He shook his head, swallowed, his chest too full of stinging unreasonable joy. “I’m just… so happy.” There was wonder in his voice. He smoothed his kimono, tried to take a calming sip of tea but swallowed the wrong way and started to cough._ _

__He looked up, ready to apologize again, but the words died on his tongue as he saw Soyo giving him a warm gaze. “It’s all right, Katsura-san. This is fine for now. We can continue this later.”_ _

__“But… You’re always so busy… I’ll be fine!” he protested. This was ridiculous; what kind of affliction was “being too stupidly happy” supposed to be? He had to laugh just because of that, then felt embarrassed, cheeks hot._ _

__Soyo leaned over and patted his hand, and her assistant also gave an understanding smile. “I have a gap this Friday, we can fit it in then, if it will be fine with you. Take your time, Katsura-san. You’ve earned it.”_ _

__“But… but, but…” he still tried to argue but had to subside, finally, and just nod and take his leave, still feeling a little embarrassed and a little troubled (he liked being of use to people; if he couldn’t be useful, what good was he?); but primarily he just felt weird and lightheaded and stunned. Happy._ _

__A few blocks away there was a small city park, and he walked by its greeny paths still clutching the briefcase with the draft proposal inside, half afraid he’d get so distracted he’d forget it behind him somewhere._ _

__This joy that reverberated in him was strong, it was powerful, but he still thought it could be fragile; he wanted to protect it, he wanted to keep guard over it, and the thought that he could do so was a gladness, too, sinking into his heart. There was carefulness in it, and a certain loneliness, but nothing that wasn’t worth the price, he thought._ _

* * *

__Katsura made it home, still feeling like his feet weren't quite touching the ground, left his briefcase, went shopping for groceries. He found himself buying twice as much as he needed, forgetting Elizabeth had moved out – a mistake he hadn't made for months now. No matter, the food would keep in the refrigerator, he told himself; and then went three streets too far on the way home before he realized his mistake._ _

__He cooked and ate dinner, but he wasn't tired, not at all; he started to pace the flat then decided to go take an evening walk and get some use for the energy that kept bubbling up inside him. It was dark out by then, a clear night in spring with cold, crisp air and a few stars bright enough to be seen in the electrified city. There were less and less of badly-lit streets and neighbourhoods, these days; he'd had a hand in making that happen, but he did miss being able to see more of the stars._ _

__The moon must have been behind a big bank of clouds. It came out as he approached a small wooden bridge over a canal. As he set foot on the bridge, he saw a figure on the other side of the canal walking briskly in his direction. The figure reached the bridge when Katsura was at the apex of it, and the moon shone on him, reflecting on his naturally wavy white hair._ _

__Katsura stopped. “Gintoki?”_ _

Gintoki kept walking, stopping when he was right in front of Katsura, barring his way. He looked displeased. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked in a low voice.

Katsura crossed his arms defensively. “I’m taking an evening walk. Why? What about you?” 

“Out looking. For you.” 

Startled, Katsura gave him a puzzled look. “You could just call me if you wanted something…” 

“You’ve turned off your phone or something.” 

“I have? Oh. My mistake.” He must have forgotten to switch his mobile back on after the meeting ended prematurely. 

“But that’s just as well. I want to talk eye to eye. You’d just have found another way to evade me if I’d called first.”

Katsura stood silent for a moment. “Did… did things not go well?” he asked haltingly. “Did you two fight?” Had he miscalculated?

“No, no, it went fine!” Gintoki waved energetically. “For being me and him, it went really fine! Of course we fought some, and we kissed some, too, and stuff.”

Katsura gave him a weighing look. There was a faint blush on Gintoki’s cheeks now. He didn’t appear to be lying. And there really _was_ more life in his eyes than usually, much as Katsura had hoped. “Good…” he said. “I wanted that.” His cheeks got a little warm, too. 

“Yeah! But you? You just made up some lame excuse so you could run away.”

Katsura twined a strand of hair around his finger. “It wasn’t made up,” he mumbled. “Anyway… you deserved some time alone.” 

Gintoki took a step forward. They stood close now: if they’d worn traditional hats their hat rims would have touched each other. “Maybe,” he said, his voice sinking. “But it felt like you were making yourself vanish. Do you _want_ to be on the outside like that?”

Katsura stared at the gravel by his feet. “I just want you to be happy,” he mumbled, voice thick. “Both of you.”

“Yeah, and that gives you a noble, warm feeling, right? Fuck that.” Gintoki was all up in his face now, glaring. “I'll smash that lame careful happiness. Drag you inside so you can take the risks of being selfish and fucking up, just like we do.” 

Katsura took a step back, fear and shame and joy mingling in one raging inner bowl of soup. "Gintoki, you shouldn't say that, I-" 

He wanted to look away, but Gintoki was making it impossible. Swallowing tightly, staring at him and wondering if he looked as much like a deer crossed in headlights as he felt, he managed, “Yes, I know it’s taking the easy way out, stepping away like that, but... I'll just jinx it. I want you to be fine, not..." _If I'm on the outside, I can stand guard over you,_ was what he wanted to say, but the reasoning felt so thin and unconvincing now. Gintoki wouldn't buy it. He always thought he was the one most suited to be the guard, anyway. 

Gintoki waited several long seconds, then reached out gently and held his wrist, his grip very light. “Do you even hear yourself, Zura?” he said, sounding calmer now, but with a hoarseness in his voice. “Out of the three of us... you think _you're_ going to be the jinx?”

A voice broke in, “Heh. But wouldn't it be ironic if that was the case?” 

Katsura and Gintoki both started as Takasugi stepped forward into the moonlight right behind Gintoki. How long had he been standing there in the dark?

“You shut up,” they said in chorus. 

Katsura added, “You have no say in this,” sniffing haughtily.

Takasugi drew a hand through his head languidly. “See, Gintoki?” he said. “If Zura wants to be on ‘stand-by’ as you called it so damn much, who are we to stop him? He might well be happier that way. That’s a kink of yours, isn’t it, Zura?”

Katsura flushed. “What do you mean… No, it’s not!” He suddenly struggled with the urge to whap Takasugi over the head. “It’s not that I _like_ to do it, it’s just that…"

Gintoki stepped closer again, so near his breath felt warm on Kasura’s cheek. From gripping Katsura’s wrist he moved to cupping Katsura’s hand between his hands. “Listen, Zura, you’re a pain in the neck whenever you grouse about being on stand-by as if people should just magically know when you want company. But that’s still loads better than when you just go silent and fade away. I hate that. You should stop doing that.”

“Oi!” With a glare, Takasugi stepped closer, too, grabbing Katsura’s free hand and yanking his upper body away from Gintoki. “Why are you two standing so close right out in public?” he growled. “Stop that. You’re not allowed.”

Gintoki burst out laughing. “See, Zura? Isn’t he cute when he’s jealous? Suuure, you _totally_ don’t care what Zura does, you’re completely convincing us, you edgelord.”

“Is that tobacco I smell on you?” said Katsura with a frown, looking suspiciously at Takasugi, heat remaining in his face. There was a confused but growing warmth in his chest, too. “Have you already taken up that bad habit again? Gintoki!” He cleared his throat, now acutely aware of their nearness, their scents, their lips and how close they were to his. Jealous or not, Takasugi hadn’t been wrong that this was no way to behave in public, even at night. 

“What?” asked Gintoki, now gently rubbing Katsura’s one hand, thumb stroking his palm and the other fingers working the other side, almost but not quite tickling him.

“You were supposed to keep an eye on him!” 

Meanwhile, Takasugi, watching this display with narrowing eyes, raised Katsura’s other hand and first kissed his knuckles, then nibbled on them. Katsura flushed even darker, very off-balance now, but finally wrenched both his hands free. Trying to decide his next move, he jumped high as he heard meaningful coughs from behind him, and they had to move to make way for three chatting old grannies to cross the narrow bridge carrying grocery bags. Katsura had to remind himself it wasn’t actually so late that grocery stores wouldn’t be open, not in these days with the increased safety in the neighbourhood. 

“This is silly. You’re both being silly.” Katsura drew his warm scarf around himself and started to walk home. “Inconsiderate and irresponsible and destructive…!” 

He huffed as he walked, but the other two walked alongside him, on each side.

“Zura, you know we can’t be responsible for this brat our whole lives,” said Gintoki, picking his nose and patting Katsura on the back. “You’ve got to let the little bird fly out of the nest eventually.” 

“Zura, you know you can just ditch this guy and put _him_ on standby,” said Takasugi, immediately putting his own arm around Katsura’s waist, maybe more possessively than supportingly. “He’s not the main character anymore, the manga’s over. It will even be good for him. Teach him discipline.”

They entered the sidestreet where Katsura lived, not letting go of him till they all reached his building’s front door. He sighed, contriving to look put-upon. “Like anything could teach either of you discipline,” he muttered. He dug into his sleeves for his house-keys. 

His chest felt hot, burning, too much of everything there, fear and joy and desire and grief and a relief that flooded like a river. And too much need, too much yearning, surely they didn’t need him anywhere near the same way… 

“I meant what I said, Zura,” Gintoki’s voice said, clear in the night. Katsura, whose hands had been fumbled with the keys, paused. “I’ll smash it. And he’s going to help.” 

“Gintoki’s talking rubbish, I’m not here to help him with any of his stupid shonen hero stuff,” said Takasugi. “But stop imagining you’re not mine.” 

Gintoki rolled his eyes at this, and the two of them glared at each other as if trying to start something, which at least would have been familiar territory. But then they abruptly stopped and just turned to look at Katsura instead, who still said nothing. He opened the outer door, led them inside the building, up the creaky wooden stairs, then unlocked the door to his flat and let them in. His skin felt full of tiny little pinpricks. He had run out of words and there was no script in his head for this. 

“I don’t know,” he mumbled, voice heavy. He closed the door behind them, supporting himself on Takasugi as he bent down to take his shoes off. “It’s just that-- can we really be like this, can we be--” he didn’t quite dare to say _happy_ \-- “What if we really would be jinxing it-- demanding too much--” He reached out to the backs of their heads, pulling them close, touching their foreheads with his own, breathing them in. 

“Oh, stop it already!” Takasugi shoved at Katsura, then grabbed him for real, pushing him towards the wall and finally, _finally_ kissing him deeply. Katsura held him tightly and kissed him back, trying to drink him in, his scent, the whole heady mix of strength and impatience, charisma and hunger. Perhaps finally soothed just enough not to burn himself out. “Seriously, you need to rebel more,” he added at the end of the kiss. 

“Hnf,” said Gintoki, pushing himself closer. His hands were making a room for themselves inside Katsura’s kimono, now stroking his bare chest. “Don’t listen to that edgelord,” he mumbled, a humming undertone in his voice that he would only get when he felt really happy, Katsura knew. That incredibly comforting presence brimming with strength and compassion, so deserving of all that was good in this world. “Just take it easy and ride the moment. Just relax and stay with me. Idiot."

Katsura shivered, then laughed helplessly. “Well-- well, then,” he said hoarsely, breath catching. He wanted to say, _If you won’t let me stand guard over you, then you’d better shape up so I don’t need to worry._ But it became too complicated, all of a sudden, his mind overwhelmed and his mouth and tongue finding better and more fun things to do, so he supposed he just had to _show_ them how to apply themselves, and then even that thought flew out of his brain in favour of more immediate actions and sensations. He let himself be coaxed into the strongest stream in the rushing river of _this now, this here_ , where he allowed himself, finally, to let go and be swept along, clutching at the other two, guiding them and being guided; together, and together, and together. 

\--end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who have read, commented, kudosed, or bookmarked this fic! Your support has helped me keep going till the end.
> 
> These last two chapters really snowballed in length... sorry about that. Somehow it didn't feel thematically right to break them up into more chapters now. 
> 
> The forest shrine where Katsura finds Takasugi is inspired by the one seen in manga chapter 679, page 10, panel 8.
> 
> The chapter title is based on a line of similar meaning from the song "Bokutachi no kisetsu" by DOES, featured in the first animated Gintama movie.


End file.
